Well the vacuum pulls right through a sheet of MDF without holes in it. We can stack up four sheets of 4mm on the machine at work and they all hold down. With the thicker waste sheets you need to machine the hard surface off both sides of the MDF to let the vacuum suck through, but you still don't need to drill holes in that either.
The vacuum pumps use a lot of power, but they are handy if you are doing lots of machining. If you are just making a few things then clamping works fine, it just takes a little longer to setup.
Shannon. |