The desk top is done. Rebated, dovetailed, fettled, ready for wax. Time to move on.

Moving on means moving from ancient joinery to modern furniture making. The stretchers on this desk are I-beams — hardwood ply substrate at the cool price of $280 a sheet, lipped and soon to be veneered, then cut to final size. If I'm lucky I'll get two perfectly sized strips off the sheet to become the web of each beam.

When it comes to veneering I've been making do with clamps and cauls for years because the bag/pump set up is a huge pain in the rear and mostly not worth it, but the desk has enough parts that the scales have tipped the other way finally. And at the start of the year I made a promise to myself to invest the time in jigs a fixtures like this. So I got busy making furniture adjacent things yet again.

A "proper" Vacupress pump runs north of two grand for the model I'd need. But inside that fancy looking box is an electric pump, and a vacuum pressure switch. That's it. For two grand! I bought a cheap Vevor pump years ago and used it for a dining table. It smokes constantly and filled me with dread leaving it running overnight for an epoxy cure. So this week I built something it desperately needs: an auto-cycling system that switches the pump off at 500 bar, then kicks it back on as the system bleeds air and the pressure drops. The vacuum pressure switch came from Mum in the UK — thirty-two dollars. It retails here for $290, which is just about the highest Straya tax I've encountered.

The switch will suffer from the electrical inrush every time the pump starts. The contacts will eventually weld or burn out, so I added a four-dollar relay as a sacrificial part — it takes the inrush and protects the switch. When it dies I'll swap it in 2 seconds for another four dollar part. And when the pump needs replacing it simply unplugs from a regular female socket.

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I also made a new vacuum bag too. Bags are absurdly expensive off the shelf (the last quote I got for a 1200x2400 poly bag was $2915, plus GST, plus shipping). Clear plastic from Clark Rubber for $60, high-tack acrylic tape from Bunnings for $22, fifteen minutes work, holds a perfect vacuum. The last time I made a bag I used PVC weld — it was a huge faff, a terrible mess, and didn't even seal. This one sealed hard on the first go. That 'ultra high tack' tape ain't lyin.

All told, the press setup came in about five thousand dollars under what the off-the-shelf equivalent would have cost. Yep, you read that right: $5000 cheaper. I call that a non-trivial saving.

I also made two joinery sample display unit thingies for next month's exhibition at Hive Gallery. Pass-around pieces so people can hold them, turn them over, and get some idea of the effort that goes into a custom piece.

Next week, veneering, veneering, veneering and veneering. And maybe time for a new drawer construction method that doesn't need any glue.