Best way to seal wood to be used as a vacuum chuck

[Glen Blanchard]

I'm making a couple of chucks for my vacuum system. I have tapped some maple with the Beall spindle tap and have glued another piece of maple to that. I'd like to seal the wood to make it as air tight as possible. What should I use? I was thinking a wipe on poly over shellac.

[Grant Wilkinson]

I've done few using rattle can shellac and it worked fine. I did a small one putting a CA finish on it, much like I do with pens and bottle stoppers. It worked very well,too.

[Brice Rogers]

I suspect that your plan would work fine.

You may want to drizzle some thin or medium CA on the threads as I imagine that there is end grain and it might help to seal the end grain. I usually put CA on the threads (which soaks in like water) to harden them up and then retap.

[Steve Schlumpf]

I used WOP on mine and it has worked great for many years now.

[Peter Fabricius]

Hi Glen,
Your key word is "seal" the wood. You can use anything that will fill the wood pores. It is nice to have a vac Chuck that looks nice so, use a Polyeurathane or Tung Oil so it will look and feel like a finished tool you can be proud of.
Enjoy your new vac Chucks.
Peter F.

[Len Mullin]

Glen, if you apply a coating of shellac, you will have sealed the wood and need not apply any thing else to seal it again.
Len

[gary r heltemes]

I'm almost scared to post my method and results after reading the work you guys do for you vac chucks.
I'll glue up 6 to 8 pieces of 3/4 particle board, turn it round, then hollow it out with my 3" forstner. To keep it sealed as tight as possible........I lay on a couple coats of yellow glue. The particle board might not be ultra "pretty", but it darn sure does the job.
Gary