how many inches do I need?

[mavrick1903]

for casting?
for stablizing wood blanks?
for vacuum chucking?

looking at getting into the wonderful world of no air, looking for this info. thanks.

 

[jthompson1995]

That's a bad question to ask with some of the characters around here [][].

 

[wdcav1952]

Just enough to get the job done. [}][}][}][}]

 

[alamocdc]

Sorry, dude, I can't help you with that one... Oh, Ang, maybe you or Becca should take this one. [:0][}]

There are just so many things I could have said, but I'll be nice... for once.

Assuming you are talking of Mercury, you can cast w/o vacuum. You CAN use vac for just a minute or so first thing, but pressure casting (about 30 PSI) will ensure that any bubbles will be indistinguishable.

In stabilizing I've been gotten good results w/20-27 inches. Pull a vacuum and let it sit for about 30 minutes; release the vacuum for about an hour and repeat these two steps as many times as you can over a day and a half.

Vacuum chucking I have not tried yet so I can't answer that one.

 

[pssherman]

Originally posted by wdcav1952
<br />Just enough to get the job done. [}][}][}][}]

That's a good answer no matter how you interpret the question.[]

Paul in AR

 

[jjenk02]

I'm not going to touch this one[8D]

 

[angboy]

Originally posted by alamocdc
<br />Sorry, dude, I can't help you with that one... Oh, Ang, maybe you or Becca should take this one. [:0][}]

Don't worry Billy- as soon as I saw the topic for the thread, I knew I'd have to chime in! So in the name of the good old IAP, I did some field research on the topic just this very evening, a short while ago [:X](oh the things I do for you guys...[]). And my conclusion was... that more (field) research is required. I may have to do so much that I can get a second dissertation out of it! It'd be a much more interesting topic than my first one.

But the preliminary conclusion is that it varies by person- some of us need more inches, some need less.[] They don't all fit into the same category. And, even though men often seem to think that no matter, more inches are better ([}][}]for casting!!!), there is such a thing as too many inches![:0]

 

[Fred]

OK, I'll chime in as well ...

My experience has been 5 - 10 inches of mercury will do the job as long as the solvent doesn't "boil" off immediately. Just repeat the vacuum process many, many times until the wood is soaked as well as possible. Pre-turning to almost the correct diameter and pre-drilling the tube hole will assist a great deal. Re-drilling after the process will clean out any clogs. Confused yet ... ask more questions, read all the posts here - do a search for this subject here and read ALL that you can. []