Fuck yeah!
So I bought a 20 year old Robinair vacuum pump for 80 bucks off of ebay over a month ago. It was poorly packaged, damaged in shipping, and was in terrible shape mechanically even though the auction said "works fine". I had to replace the power cord, and completely strip the electric motor, vacuum pump and assembly, clean the 20 year old oil and residue, and reassemble the damn thing. The good news is that this son of a bitch pulls 29in Hg at 5cfm! That's professional grade $300+ dollar vacuum pump kind of airflow! I needed at least a 10gal tank for doing 2ft by 2ft sized pieces, although the tank can be smaller if I use a shop vac to pull out 60-70% of the air first, and then kick in the high vacuum tank for the remaining 30%. Anyway, 10 gal tanks are over $150, but Harbor freight had 11 gal reserve tanks (only one 2-way inlet and no outlet) for THIRTY BUCKS! This weekend, I'm going to punch an inch diameter hole in it and weld an outlet valve onto it so we can have HIGH FLOW VACUUM, just like what I need for a pro table!
We're almost there! All I need now is $50 worth of ceramic insulative paper, and I can build a quick n dirty NiChrome 2x2ft 240VAC oven!