Afternoon all.

I'm trying to find out some specifcations of a diesel engine vacuum pump (used to provide vacuum for the brake servo to work properly I guess). My aim is to find out if one could be used as a vacuum pump for use in composites manufacture. I'm only talking about small RC plane parts by the way.

Basically the pump would be used to create a vacuum (or partial vacuum, around 15 to 20" Hg) in a bag, whihc contains the composite layup. this allows a huge pressure to exerted on the layup, squeezing it together far better than a few heavy books!

If anyone knows what rating the pumps are (i.e how much vacuum they can pull!) then can you let me know? I'm not after any specific pumps at the moment, but I guess the bigger the better!

Cheers
Andy

A good vacuum cleaner will give you more vacuum than is needed for wet layups. Be careful of the vane pumps, as in the diesel types. The volatiles in the resin will be sucked out and knacker the vanes. No vacuum pretty quick!

Syd.