Well my life is finally slowing down enough that I think I can start putting together the parts joe sent me! Whats your opinion on this guys, I'm thinking of adding vacuum clamping to my table, I have a venturi vacuum clamp I bought awhile back (i'm a cabinet maker by trade) and I found these plans for a vacuum press which i wonder if I can adapt to work instead of using the venturi which requires a constant air supply gimme your thoughts. free vacuum clamp plans

I'd go the easy route and use compressed air and create a vacuum that way. It holds down about as well in my experience as an expensive vacuum pump and the sound is about the same.. you just need to have a pretty good size compressor and compressed air tank. Much less moving parts to go bad too.

Vacuum pumps may be had very cheaply - even free - if you are lucky. I've gotten several over the years. I guess you have a rather high mass flow requirement for this application though?

I use mine for vacuum drying and vacuum bagging and don't need to move much air at all - just maintain a vacuum for long periods of time.

I have made a vacuum table that hooks to my shop dust collection system though - which, of course, moves a LOT of air.