With the help of a fellow woodworker, I've found the OEM source for the most incredible vacuum sealing tape available. This is not a knock-off. This is a high density on-board gasketing tape comparable to high-end industrial vacuum clamping systems from ShopBot, C.R. Onsrud and Holtzer.
The tape is coated on one side with an acrylic pressure sensitive adhesive. The foam's 1/8" (0.125") thickness assures conformability to a wide range of substrates and its 3/8" width allows a tighter radius for small parts from the substrate on your CNC router or vacuum clamping/templating jig.
What Is it Used For?
Vacuum clamping is the easiest to way to hold an object for routing and sanding. Vacuum clamps powered by a venturi or electric pump can generate up to 1700 lbs per square foot of clamping pressure without marring the work piece. If you're unfamiliar with vacuum tape, this is the stuff that makes the air tight seal between a vacuum jig and the work piece.
About the Pricing...
From the equipment manufacturers, you could expect to pay $28 to $40 per roll. Why is it so expensive? Simple. This is the only vacuum tape designed exclusively for vacuum clamping and templating. This series of vacuum tape does not allow shifting or creeping of the work-piece. As I've said many times on other products available on my website, I've bought a huge quantity of this tape to get the absolute best price.
Features
Technical Data
What is the difference between the standard vacuum gasket and the templating gasket?
The standard tape is used for basic benchtop vacuum clamping when profile routing, sanding, or carving. The templating tape is thinner has has less lateral shift which makes it better for template and pattern routing.
Isn't this gasket tape the same as weather stripping from the hardware store?
It is definitely a different material. Weather stripping is designed to fill gaps and is generally not as resilient to frequent compression/decompression cycles. Our gasketing tape is 50 times more durable and designed for multiple hourly usage cycles.
Review by Michael Hagstad
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Quick delivery, just what I ordered. Looks like it'll work for my project. I'd certainly do business with these folks again.
Review by Dale Arnett
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Very good product, with a good price. Fast a friendly service. They let me know as soon as the unit shipped and had FedEx keep me up to date on when it would arrive.
Review by Aaron Dickinson
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Great for general purpose jigs where the work is flat and you don't need to account for much unevenness or warping, cupping, etc in the work piece. If you do need to account for that, I recommend the 1/4" thick tape. This tape has little side to side shift and is great for production router work. The 1/4" thick tape can have some side to side shifting under heavy cutting or a kick.
Review by Bryan D
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I made shaper templates for cutting boards with this tape about 2 years ago. The design proved very popular and since then I've made around 2,500 pieces. The templates are worn out now, but the tape looks and works as good as new. Totally trustworthy in a sucker jig application where gasket failure could have horrifying consequences. Accept no substitutes!
The 1/8 thickness compresses to about 1/16, so set it into a 1/16 groove or use 1/16 shims to keep the workpiece from deflecting under vacuum pressure.