Re: Vacuum Hold-down Table (Little off topic)

Well, I'm pretty sure what I'm doing is different from what most
people do, but I just took a piece of 0.5 inch acrylic and cut it the
size of my entire table. Then I surrounded the edge in bagging tape,
something common in composites manufacture, to seal the edges. I
sealed up the oil drain hole with common packing tape. I drilled 0.5
inch holes in it over the t-slots, and then put a sheet of soft
neoprene rubber over the top that I got from mcmaster-carr with small
holes cut in it to correspond with the holes I drilled. I drilled a
hole in the acyrlic over the side of the t-slots, threaded it, and put
a tube fitting in to attach to a vacuum pump.

Presto, I have a vaccuum table. Of course, I should probably note that
I only use it to cut foam, for which it works brilliantly. Some
caveats: if I want to completely mill a piece of foam, I pin it to
another piece of foam to hold it off the bed. Also, I surface these
foam bases to ensure flatness. If you reuse the bases, they leak some
air, and it helps to plug them up with vaseline.

All in all, it was practically free for me, as I had all the materials
laying around minus the rubber, but can be made easily for under $50
(not including the pump) for someone who might not. I suppose,
depending on what your machining, you might do things a little
differently, but that's my experience.