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I don't have time or place to build vacum press top and back brace. Is there somewhere to buy them

Hi Stan

John Hall at Blues Creek was talking about a vacum System a while back, I am not sure if his system was just for clamping or would perform this function too.

Give him a shout.

Stan,
I believe there is someone on the forum that sells pre-made vacuum clamps. Did anyone catch Bob Taylor's use of vacuum clamps on his "factory Friday"? Nice setup especially the templete to hold all the braces during the vacuum clamping.

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Dave Bland

remember...

"If it doesn't play in tune...it's just pretty wood"

I just made one for my shop, but for uke sized stuff.. gotta make another
for guitar stuff... they are not too hard and only took me about 3-4 hours
off and on, and have already saved me at least 5 hours after only using it
for 2 days...

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

I am really jazzed about the Taylor set up. One of the things that especially interested me was the "deck" of them that they had on roller guides.

I think it would be really cool to build two of them side by side and layer them between your workbench.

Then you could just pull out the drawer, clamp up a top or back, push it back in and keep right on working. With this set up you could be doing the top and the back simeltaneously, and it would provide a convenient storage system for the contraptions.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Bourgeois has a vacum system with pins at various points to seat the braces in place sort of like the Taylor setup I could probably make one, but at this point all my tools are in OK and I live in a tiny apt now so no way to do one. Somethings are easier to buy at this point. The deal for putting tops and backs on for braces, bridge plate and those things easy to do

You can check out turnkey systems at http://www.joewoodworker.com. For gluing up braces check out the picture of a vacuum clamping setup that Don Williams has pictured on his website. It is easy to make a vacuum box to hold your top or back and then use a vacuum compressor to apply the pressure needed to clamp all of the braces. The advantage of vacuum clamping is that the pressure is all down so that the pressure is applied uniformly.

If you build a vacuum clamping box such as the one pictured on Don's site, you can then fit a radiused board to fit and the vacuum will draw the top or back against the dish and the bracing to the top or back.

The Joe Woodworker site has lots of good reading on setting up systems for DIY'ers as well as has a nice commerce site for veneers, veneer softener, glues and other useful stuff. I have bought things like burl flitches for rosettes from him as well.

Here are a couple options for turnkey systems.

www.vacupress.com -- I have their compact 100 system and it does everything I need.

The joewoodworker.com site listed above is good too.

This looks pretty handy for the frame --- I haven't seen one in person, but it looks nifty: http://www.vacuum-press.com/table.html

I made my own, it was pretty easy and works really well. I had a neighbor who was an engineer and he gave me a venturi based vaccum (not the kind that LMI sells, it's a commercial unit) and it works very very well. There are pictures of it in the gallery on my website, I bought the sheet rubber from LMI and then built the frame.

The problem with commercial systems is simply they cost WAY too much for me, mine works just as good and does everything I want.

Cheers

-Paul-

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-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

David

What is "factory friday?" Where do I catch that?

I have a nice little vacuum set-up here but I have not set-up any clamps yet. My vacuum has a pump, a 3 gal tank and an adjustable switch that turns on the pump when you lose a certain amount a vacuum (I think it is set at 18" of mercury right now and it turns the pump off when I get to about 22")

I don't really plan on using it for bracing (I like my go bar deck at the moment ... but I am always open to other ideas.

Hopefully I will integrate some of this stuff in, but I am still busy building the "old way"

Check this out:

Taylor Factory Friday's

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

What I like about the vacum for braces it only needs to be in about 5-10 min, clean up glue and move on. I am not botherd by making one, I just am not in a place to do so in my apt and I want this sort of stuff when start up shop again and not spend time building jigs and things so easier to buy if can find where to do so