Feeling increasing amounts of envy for the physical vapor deposition machine that Mr. AppliedScience has in his home shop. There's so many cool things that thin films can be used for.
But you need a turbomolecular pump high vacuum and that's pretty dang nontrivial.
@starkatt Sprengel pumps can get a pretty decent vacuum, though nothing extreme. on the order of a millipascal or so.
you might want to consider it? they're really easy to build, the hard part is getting the working fluid (traditionally mercury, not sure if there are other fluids that would work well)
-F
@starkatt At least you might want to consider it if you're interested in experimenting with PVD. Though making a Sprengel pump might be an interesting project in its own right.
-f
@Felthry I dunno but a lot more than a hobby grade rotary vane.