How to Make a Vacuum Chamber for Resin Casting
If you’re wondering how to make a vacuum chamber for resin casts, you’re not alone. If you’ve ever tried a poured mold but found that there are air pockets in the material, you’ve probably wondered how you can make your own. Vacuum chambers can be great for viscous materials, but they don’t degas anything completely. A vacuum chamber can only apply one atmosphere of pressure, and it won’t help if there are larger bubbles. Also, a vacuum chamber cannot cure the resin.
To make your own chamber, you’ll need some tools, silicone sheet, and a small amount of Cactus Juice. First, stabilize the wood. You can do this by filling a small plastic or metal mold with Cactus Juice and then placing it inside a chamber. Once the resin is in the mold, you’ll be able to increase the pressure to about 40 psi. This will force the resin to cure.
Next, you’ll need a silicone mould with extra header space. Add casting resin to the silicone mould. The vacuum causes the air in the undercuts to expand and bubble out of the silicone mould through the header and top. When the air is compressed, pressure returns to the chamber and the resin is drawn out of the rest of the mould. The final product will be a hollow, hard casting with beautiful detail.
If you’re a handy person, you can easily make your own vacuum chamber using old vacuum pump parts. You can buy a vacuum pump online, and you can build a reusable vacuum chamber within a weekend. The only other thing you’ll need is a pressure vessel – an old pressure cooker from a flea market will do. If you’re not very handy, a simple pressure cooker on a table will suffice.
A pressure chamber is also useful for making molds under pressure. The pressure of the vacuum will reduce air bubbles inside the mold and remove the excess pressure that may have been created during the pouring process. This can also help cure the molds, as they can then be placed in the pressure chamber to cure. If you don’t want to use a pressure pot, you can create a mold with a smaller volume of resin and use a vacuum chamber to make a mold.
To create a vacuum chamber, you should first create a pressure pot. You can purchase a pressure pot from a hardware store, or you can modify a pressure pot to create a vacuum chamber. Another way to make a pressure pot is to purchase an acrylic round and tap it with plumbing fittings to fit in a dial vacuum gauge. Then, make a silicone gasket from silicone gasket sheet, or use a single-use vacuum seal tape.
Many people don’t have the necessary budget for a commercial vacuum chamber. This is because it is not as affordable as it once was. The most popular type of vacuum chamber is made with a solid PVC core and a clear PVC lid. The cost of a chamber goes up drastically with the diameter of the pipe, and a clear PVC lid allows you to see the surface of the resin.
You can also make your own vacuum chamber with a mason jar and a pump. However, you should know that the mason jar will not be as powerful as a commercially made vacuum chamber. However, if you can find a pressure cooker pot with an acrylic lid, you can easily make your own chamber with a mason jar. After making the threads, you can connect the plastic lid to the pump.
A simple two-stage pump can also be used. A two-stage pump can be used to remove air, but one stage will work just fine if you want to degas the silicone. Using a single-stage pump will take longer to create a vacuum, but you can still use it for degassing silicone. However, this does not affect the length of time your chamber remains open.
