Good examples. I will keep your contact information. One of the
things I want to have available for the other members is contact
information where they can get materials.

On the subject of the vacuum pump. Yes, I forgot that many people use
old refrigerator compressors with very good results. I need to
bone-up on how to use those since many people will not want to spring
for a commercial vacuum pump.

Can you run the refrigerator pump without regulation? I would assume
that you would want an accumulator to keep pulsations low.

Eric...

My vacuum clamping generally involves holding 1" and 2" lumber in
place on a table so I can attack it with a 5 HP router with a
typical feed rate of 1.5"/second.

My quite adequate vacuum clamping system (complete) cost less
than US$35. The vacuum pump is an old refrigerator compressor
that saw 20 years of service before I got it; and the puck-type
vacuum clamps are shop built.

I should probably say that I sell puck kits - but I encourage
people to build their own - and have a web page that tells how to
build vacuum pucks at http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/assembly.html

If you hunt around the site a bit, you can see the setup where I
use the vacuum clamps and can probably spot my "vacuum pump".