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Kelby
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Darryl,
I have a few questions I hope you can answer.
First is a question for general edification. I have used PVA with a vacuum press before with success, and I know it's not a problem. However, the PVA manufacturers recommend 175-250 psi clamping pressure, which is more than 10 times what the vacuum gets. Can you shed some light on this apparent discrepancy?
Second, I am getting ready to laminate a top for my workbench, which will be eight to ten pieces of 2" to 2-1/2" thick maple laminated together for a total width of roughly 20 inches. The finished top will be 3" thick. Normally, I would use pipe clamps and then use a hand plane to plane the top flat. But I wonder if this is something that could be done in a vacuum press. The idea would be that I would joint the edges of the maple before glue-up, such that the top-of-the-workbench edge of each piece is perfectly flat. Then, I would laminate them together in the vacuum bag face-down against a platten so that the show edges on each piece are all in the same plane, minimizing or eliminating the work that would otherwise be necessary to flatten the top. I would probably need to laminate the pieces a couple at a time because of the limited open time of PVA glue. A couple questions: (1) would the vacuum give adequate clamping pressure? (2) any other problems doing something like this? and (3) how likely am I to have a perfectly flat edge against the platen when the glue dries?
Cheers,
Kelby.
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