How to DIY Vacuum Table for CNC // Woodworking

Hey, I made a vacuum table and it sucks. No, it doesn't suck. It sucks. Okay, in this week's video, I'm gonna show you how I made this vacuum table for my CNC, follow along, watch how I did it, and let's get started. You know what stinks about having a CNC? Not having one with a vacuum hold down. Why can't I do it? This is my old spoil board. It's a mess, it's sloppy, and I have to screw all my boards down. It's miserable. So I decided to take a few measurements of the length and width of the actual cutting area, and I grabbed a few sheets of MDF. I know what you're thinking, why use MDF? Well, I Googled permeable materials and MDF was one of them. Permeable meaning it will allow air to pass through it because it is so porous. So I loaded it up, zeroed out my CNC machine, and got to work. I needed to install the boot for the vacuum first, but about 30 minutes later, I came back and I looked at my machine and I was like, what the hell? Look at all this dust. It just wasn't sucking it, but I installed the boot too high as you can see right here. I'm a ding dong, what else is new? But an hour later and the file was complete. Check this out. These are all the grooves for this vacuum hold down table. This will be with the main suction, and then all these channels are about a quarter inch wide that will provide air to suck through it. I went to the Home Depot and I picked up a few plumbing supplies as this is gonna be what I'm gonna use to capture my vacuum. Now, I don't know if this is gonna work, but let's give it a shot. I'm not sure how you would technically cut PVC pipe, but I took it over to my chop saw and zip, zap. And before you know it, I had a few pieces cut. It worked out pretty well. I went back to the table just to check my measurements, fooled around with the placement, and I think I came up with a good plan as I'm kind of figuring this out on the fly. My pipes worked out, they fit really well. So I needed to build this box or a vacuum carcass, we should say. I took a couple of measurements and figured out I needed to do an inch and a quarter strips. This will be the border for this entire table. Like any good woodworker would do, I wanted to do a little dry fit or lay the boards out. I grabbed some CA glue. I'm getting hungry. I'm getting kind of hangry, actually. Ah, well, that was a little awkward. Let's move on to gluing it up. I'm applying a little Titebond glue and in between I'm adding CA glue. The CA glue is gonna work like a clamp, like a temporary hold down, just to hold the board in place. Once that's done, I will come back along and tack it all down with some brad nails. I know what you're thinking. Why use this permanent nail and glue situation? Shouldn't I be using screws? Well, I am. This will be one side of it, but the bottom board I will screw down so that way I can always remove the bottom board and get to the pipes if necessary. I also decided at the last minute to add some support strips. After all, this is MDF and it's not really a reliable material. It can bow or bend. Sometimes the moisture in the air causes it to conform to some weird shape. So I added these supports. I think they'll be best. Like everything in my life, I get excited too early on. Here I am thinking I've rocked this thing. And then I decided the placement of my pipes isn't gonna work. Coming out the side is gonna go right into the arm of the CNC. So I had to change the location and move it to the center. Then I decided to add a little silicone because I don't know if all this suction and the permeable material, how it's gonna lose air. So I decided to just go ahead and seal it up. About an hour later, I was ready to put on the bottom board. I really beat myself up, took a break, thought it through and was really blaming myself for a lot of mistakes on this project. But in the end, I figured it all out. I got the piping in the right placement and moved on to attaching the bottom board. It's time to flip it over. Ooh, check that out. This thing is a thing of beauty. It's gotta work. And if it doesn't, all I did was waste a ton of time. Let's attach the knob that the vacuum hose will go to and then grab some of this squirrely bullshit, get tangled up and work with it. But this is gonna help me fill in the grooves so that way I don't lose any suction around the perimeter of the table. I took a blunt edge instrument and just started smushing it down. Smush, smush, smush, smush. Something about installing that was oddly satisfying. I enjoyed that. But it was time to move on to installing a 90 degree fence. So anytime I put my material on there, I could line it up real easy. So I attached one screw to the short and one screw to the long portion, grabbed my square and lined it up. Now let's remove my old ---- from the CNC, blow it out, clean it up and install the new one. I had some old fasteners laying around the shop that never had a purpose, but I used them for this and they worked great. Then it was time to see if it would actually suck. So I plugged in the vacuum and it was working so far. I put one sheet of quarter inch MDF on it, turned on the vacuum and boom, it sucked down and it was time to do a little slippage test. Ah, pull, pull. Okay, but will it work with two boards? After all, I don't want the original board to get messed up, the spoil board. Slip, slide, man, it worked. Let's run a test file and see what happens. I'm gonna cut out a couple of templates and just take my chances. If it messes up, it does. Wow, check that out. So this is a template for other stuff that I made, but it cut it out. It didn't slip, it didn't move. That's a win. That's unusual for me. All right, if you like this video, subscribe. If not, check out some of this other bullshit that I've made. See you later.