Some time ago I wrote of my intention of have a go with a food style vacuum bagger for gluing up small parts and I am happy to report that trial have been a complete success as you can see from my home video above. Of course you cannot glue up super large components but for that I have a larger vacuum bagging outfit. Years ago I used to have a vacuum bagger that was powered by a proper vacuum pump and this is definitely the way to go whereas the large system that I have now is run by a venturi pump connected to a compressor. I'll do more on that system later suffice to say that it is not as good as the proper vac pump as the compressor has to run nearly all the time, which is both wasteful and noisy. This then was my reason for wanting a simple quick and efficient way of bagging up small parts for which I have found the Foodsaver works a treat. After all a vacuum is a vacuum and once the air has been withdrawn and the bag sealed up the part can be left to set up overnight or whatever then removed and is ready for additional work.
There are other machines which I am sure would work equally well but the bags that come with the Foodsaver model are relatively cheap at $10 for an 11 inch by 18 foot roll. You can buy quart, gallon or other size bags but the roll is the one to go for in my book. You simply have to cut off however much you need so quite lengthy parts can be glued up but obviously they cannot be more than about 10 inches wide or they will not fit into the bag. The cheapest sealer unit is about $80 to which you need to add the cost of the bags so for less than a 100 you can have your own vacuum bagging unit with which to laminate all sorts of boat parts.
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