screen printing > DIY - From master engineered marvels to cobbled together jury-rigged or Jerry-built junk!

DIY Vacuum Pallet for M&R

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mimosatexas:
This is an older project, but wanted to share since I think a few people are interested in these and the commercially available products are super pricey.  Total cost to me was around $40 and it took about 2 hours to build, though a lot of time was spent waiting for the contact cement and epoxy to dry a bit before moving to the next stage of the build.  Not sure how much you'd spend if you outright bought everything, but under $100 I think)

Parts:

* Bracket (had laying around from a warped pallet I got for free from another shop, but looks like they are around $40 from M&R)
* Sink Drain Adapter (landlord is a plumber and he has tons of these laying around, but I don't think they cost much new)
* 1/8"x18"x24" plexi/acrylic ($9x1) *I actually harvested the plexi for mine from a much larger table top I built years ago using the same method, but have since gotten clamshell presses that I use instead for larger work.  I was only able to get a 16" wide piece off of this surface due to a large scratch and still have enough for another project, so that determined the final width.  Building fresh I would have just made it 18x24 to limit the amount of cuts needed
* 1/4x24x24" plywood ($4x1)
* 1/4"x1/4"x36" wood pieces ($0.75ea x 10)
* 1"x1"x8' ($19 x 1)
* Some rubber cement, epoxy, and tape to hold the thing together
Drill holes on a 1" grid (use pegboard below to save time with measuring).  Cut everything to size.  My final size is 16x24, but 18x24 is "ideal" for doing as few cuts as possible.  Cut the hole for your vacuum in the plywood, then glue all the 1/4 wood to it and weigh it down until dry.  Epoxy the plexi to the base, flip over, weigh and let dry.  Add the bracket, adapter for the vacuum, and the bracing, weigh and dry.  Finished.  Whole thing comes it just under 5/8" thick, so you do have to adjust your off contact a touch on press, but I have printed thousands of transfers on this guy and it works excellently.

Tape is used on the edges to soften them up a bit. and the painters tape is just masking off holes that aren't used when printing 12.5x19" transfer sheets.  Guides on the side and bottom are just taped in place and are little squares of ultimate clean up cards I cut up.

rusty:
This is great. I am about to build a vacuum table for flatstock printing. I have an old book that shows how to build so a switch activates when the screen cause up or down to activate the vacuum. I'll be using a vacuum motor from an old vaster exposure unit. I'll post progress pics when I'm done.

Gilligan:
Might want a pump that moves more air.

Small shop vac might be better.

Sent from my LG-H811 using Tapatalk

rusty:

--- Quote from: Gilligan on July 21, 2016, 12:17:07 PM ---Might want a pump that moves more air.

Small shop vac might be better.

Sent from my LG-H811 using Tapatalk

--- End quote ---

Good point. Was hoping to utilize the small vacuum I salvaged but might bot be strong enough.

mimosatexas:
I use one of those $25 bucket shop vac's from home depot with a cheapo harbor freight foot pedal to start/stop.  Works really well.

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