Marc,
Vacuum is used for two different but similar reasons. Some use vacuum as a step in stabilizing wood...to fill any voids, cracks, etc with a resin. It also makes softer woods and punky spalted woods much harder. If you've never turned a stabilized blank, treat yourself to one. You;ll love'em.
Others of us use vacuum to degass resin as a step in casting our own plastic pen blanks using polyester resin, epoxy resin, or some other type of resin. I use it for getting the air out of clear polyester resin for casting rattlesnake skin pen blanks. Read my article on the home page for an idea of how vacuum is used for casting. Sorry, but I've not done any stabilizing...I buy'em already done or have them done professionally...
As eagle mentioned, there are several threads on both stabiizing and casting that mention vacuum, pressure, pickle jars, implosions, no implosions, yes it will, no it won't, can't work, works for me, it shouldn't, it does, ....
Do a good turn daily!
Don
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Originally posted by Marc Phillips
<br />Could someone point me in the right direction....
I read the posts here and see references to vacuum pumps and pickle jars...
What are these being used for?
Sorry for being such a newbie, but I really have no clue what is being discussed [:I]