My friend and frequent collaborator, Steve Pellitteri, is a mad scientist. Check out this vacuum press he made using an old Coors beer keg and stuff he had lying around his shop.
Who doesn’t love tools made from beer kegs… that look like bombs… or some discarded part of Sputnik. I was legitimately scared of getting pulled over while transporting it.
Here’s how it works – just slide the parts to be pressed / glued up into the vacuum bag, hook the keg contraption [venturi] up to the air compressor, and switch it on. The vacuum sucks out all the air in the vacuum bag, exerting several thousand pounds of pressure per square inch on the parts.
Here it is pressing out some custom Teak veneer panels for a recent project.
Stephen Day Design 