On Sat, 09 Jan 2010 14:15:50 -0800, Moray wrote:

I am thinking hard on buying a vacuum unit for my lathe. I have looked
at the holdfast system which produces 19hg. A used pump I have seen
produces 22 hg. Is the difference a big one or is the 19 inches enough.
If anyone has the holdfast system I would like to know how it is working
out and up to what size/weight bowls can it handle. Thanks for any
input. Murray



Being married to a "down-easter, Scot" for almost 46 years it wears off
on one ;-) .


What I did, and it works great, was to buy/obtain the following:

1. used 230v Gast pump from the Surplus Center
https://www.surpluscenter.com/home.asp

2. 24" solid 3/8 brake line from my local auto parts store

3. four foot of 3/8 rubber gas line from the same auto parts store

4. a sealed bearing with a 3/8" center diameter.

5. a vacuum filter from Harbor Freight

6. a 6" face plate from Harbor Freight

7. a 24" wide sheet of heavy cork from Hobby Lobby

8. a disk of 3/4" plywood (cut to fit the swing of the lathe)


I use the a switch on the wall to control the pump.

I cut the solid brake line about 3" longer than the length of the
headstock and epoxy the flared end of the solid brake line to the 3/4"
plywood, after drilling a hole (with a recess to handle the flare) in
the center of the disk and mounting the disk to the face plate.

Contact cement the cork to the plywood disk and clean out the center to
allow air passage down the tube. I used hot glue to seal the edges of
the cork so I would not get cork being drawn into the pump.

Turn a cylinder 3/8" larger than your bearing and drill out a recess in
it to accept the bearing. Then drill a hole through the center of the
block to align with the center of the bearing. Epoxy a short pieces of
the brake tube in the block and center of the bearing. Epoxy the outer
race of the bearing into the block. (this gives you your slip bearing to
isolate the rotation of the lathe )

Mount the filter on the wall and connect the output side of the bearing
block to one side and the other to the input of the pump.

Bingo, for just over $100.00 you are up and running with a system that
has plenty of vacuum for any size bowl.

Deb