Originally Posted by
RCaffin
Sacrificial base boards - all the time. I use MDF, chipboard, softwood and hardwood for this, depending on what I am machining.
Better note that chipboard and MDF do not play nicely with any sort of lubricant! But I can use hardwood with a mister with no problems.
For vacuum tables I use slabs of PE (ie, thick ones) and machine the top down every so often. You do NOT need a highly porous base for vacuum machining: just one or two small holes. Sure, you can use a porous base if you have a huge vacuum pump and don't care about the noise and cost of power.