J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Low Tech High Volume Vacuum Setup

I wanted to show how to do a very low tech, low buck high volume vacuum setup. Many of the coring projects we all need to do can be helped with a vacuum to press. But maybe you have quite justified a vacuum pump. I would suggest you skip the high vacuum pump in favor of your shop vac or similar high volume vacuum pump. The following images show a very simple port you can buy at your local hardware store, if you don't already have one of these sink drains lying around. Then with your shop vac, some heavy plastic and some painters tape you have everything you need for a vacuum setup more than adequate for bedding core into thickened epoxy.

Image #1 is a simple chrome sink drain the black circle is for the cut out for the port:


Image #2 shows the drain in the plastic film:


Image #3 is vinyl core being pressed into thickened epoxy, the painters tape in the field area is to hold the smaller bits of coring together during assembly:


Simple painters tape is used to seal the film to the hull and the vacuum line to the large sink drain port. If you are using a shop vac you likely do need to monitor how warm the motor gets when running in continuous use. With slow set epoxy you may need to run the vac for several hours for the epoxy to fully cure. If you think the vac is getting too warm you may want to shut it down from time to time. High volume vacuum pumps can tolerate a leaky setup which is common when using any kind of coring. With low volume/high vacuum pumps it is critical to have a nearly perfect seal, so you need to use the high tack sealing tapes and carefully work the perimeter of the plastic film.