Vacuum Bagging Port for Wine Saver Cork Valve

thingiverse

This Vacuum Bag fitting is designed around a Wine Saver vacuum pump and the cork that seals and holds vacuum in a wine bottle. I wanted a setup that was free from powered pumps and hoses, and would hold vacuum without constant connection to a vacuum source, and this does the trick! Print the fitting with 99 shell walls or 100% infill to make sure there is no seepage through the plastic. The walls are designed thick, as I've had leaks with lighter-duty valves that I can only attribute to seeping through the plastic. The threads on both parts should print well as long as you can print a 45 degree overhang. If the threads are tight, keep turning it to loosen them up. The fitting takes about 4 hours to print at 0.16mm layer height. 0.20 would still yield good thread quality. USE IRONING to get very smooth sealing surfaces! The Nut can be printed with 3 shell walls and 20% infill. Around 3 hours. Washer is under an hour to print. The fitting uses a -223 size o-ring (0.139" x 1.609"ID) Another version of the fitting is included without the o-ring groove, in case you think you'll have better results with a large rubber/neoprene washer. Cut a hole in the top of the vacuum bag the size of the stem. smear a small amount of acrylic caulk into the o-ring groove and INSIDE the o-ring, between the o-ring and the threads. The o-ring will act as a dam for the caulk as the vacuum tries to pull air and caulk in through the opening in the bag. Drop the washer onto the threads on top of the bag and thread the nut as tight as you can get it. Put the Wine Saver cork in with a thin layer of caulk, to be sucked down and into any tiny voids. Pull the vacuum with the Wine Saver pump! It takes a while if there's a lot of air in the bag, so you could remove the bulk of the air with a shop vac or vacuum cleaner hose. My wine saver pulls vacuum down to 20" hg. Pretty good, and adequate for most small composite vacuum bagging jobs.