My ($10) Stabilizing Chamber

[NittanyLion]

A recent thread talking about home grown stabilizing chambers is the reason for this post. I want to share my method. I've built about a dozen chambers so far. This is by far the best and the one I use the most. It can be valved off at night, checked in the morning, and I'm still holding full vacuum.

The chamber itself is a "candy jar" from Wal-mart. It's glass and cost less than $5. The best part about this(other than glass) is that it holds 5" blanks perfectly. This minimizes empty space in the chamber causing you to use more of Curtis' Juice-love that stuff.... Glass is much better than acrylic because you do not need to clean it between uses. Do this with Acrylic and you will replace your chamber really quick(Found this out several times).

The top is a 3/8 piece of acrylic from Lowes. I drilled a hole, epoxied in a fitting, and hooked it up to my vacuum pump. You can see my gasket material - Rope Caulk from Wal-Mart. I've tried many different things here, and this stuff is the best!

Last winter I ran 6 gallons of Cactus Juice through this chamber alone.....it worked like a dream.

 

[southernclay]

A friend of mine that makes knife blocks does this same thing, he has one for each color dye he uses, very nice!

 

[Timbo]

Cheap and brilliant...good job! I worked in a research chemistry lab in a past life. Even thought all the glassware we used was rated for high vacuum, we always used a safety shield between us and the equipment in the unlikely case there was an implosion. Simple 1/4" acrylic sheet attached to support legs should do it. Again...great way to solve a complex problem on the cheap. Thanks for sharing.

 

[NittanyLion]

You can see my acrylic lid is failing. While easy to replace, I would like to find a glass solution that I could drill through and mount the brass fitting.

 

[raar25]

Now your talking! Great simple solution!

 

[raar25]

Why cant you jus use a diamond hole saw and a gasket sealed fitting on the glass top?

 

[sbell111]

You can see my acrylic lid is failing. While easy to replace, I would like to find a glass solution that I could drill through and mount the brass fitting.

What if you just went to thicker acrylic?

 

[NittanyLion]

You can see my acrylic lid is failing. While easy to replace, I would like to find a glass solution that I could drill through and mount the brass fitting.

What if you just went to thicker acrylic?

You can, but will still experience the same problem. I built a tube chamber with some 3/8" thick tube I got my hands on. Eventually it started to spiderweb and crack. This is from not properly cleaning it, or maybe from keeping CJ in it too long(typically I let it sit overnight).

 

[MesquiteMan]

Build a lid out of solid Type 1 PVC sheet. It is impervious to CJ and works very well. Since you can see through the chamber, no need to see down inside. If you need a piece of PVC, let me know. I am SURE I have some scraps that will be big enough and will send them just for the cost of shipping. That is what i use on all my chambers now. Shoot me an e-mail or PM with sizing if you want to go this route.

 

[dogrunner]

could a guy use 3/8 or 1/2 inch aluminum as a lid

 

[Charlie_W]

could a guy use 3/8 or 1/2 inch aluminum as a lid

What about Corian or other solid surface material? Will it hold vacuum? You could cut it to fit and then cut a slight rabbit around the edge where the rope caulk would go.

 

[Charlie_W]

could a guy use 3/8 or 1/2 inch aluminum as a lid

What about Corian or other solid surface material? Will it hold vacuum? You could cut it to fit and then cut a slight rabbit around the edge where the rope caulk would go.
You can drill and tap for the fitting and then use epoxy on the fitting too.

 

[MikeinSC]

I stumbled across the same setup except I'm using corian for the lid, rubber sheet from ACE and 3/8 pex line with compression fittings. Works fairly well thus far.

Holds about 40 blanks.