Dave Ronyak said:
There are several vendors of the table end of a vacuum holddowns that advertise in FWW (USA), and some of those offer components so you can make your own holddown table top if you want to. Less than US $200 will get you one in USA (no vacuum source included).
Hi, Dave. I've been very close to pulling the trigger on one of these for months, not for vacuum pressing but for vacuum clamping:
http://www.veneersupplies.com/product_info.php?products_id=248
I'm really starting to think that it might be faster to cut panels for carcases with a vacuum clamp and the new parallel/perpendicular guides compared to my jumbo MFT, with no loss in capacity or accuracy. And when using the Domino or biscuit joiner, the vacuum clamps would seem to be faster than setting up the MFT to hold the pieces still.
I don't subscribe to FWW. If it's not too much trouble, would you mind naming some names of the companies that advertise vacuum clamping components there? Joe Woodworker sells some and has a tutorial on making them, but I'd almost always rather buy tools than make them, and this is certainly one of those times.
Regards,
John