Vacuum Leaks

Put a layer of bagging tape, with the paper still on, over the wrinkled area and push down. Worked for me.

 

I'd be willing to bet not enough pleats. From my limited experience in vac bagging; it is my chief issue. Very easy to think you can seal up the diagonals, but they seal poorly.

I thought about this post more today and don't really agree with myself. Pleating is tough to get right, but shouldn't be the cause of your issues. Start small, you can even start with NO bag to test and see if the pump and resin trap and stuff hold vac on their own.

 

Do you have a shutoff between the gauge and the pump? It might be good to isolate the pump side to make sure you aren't chasing a vacuum leak you have on the pump side and it'd cost you like 5 bucks and about 5 minutes. You can add another shutoff it you think your gauge or bleeder might be leaking. Of course, adding shutoffs does add the possibility of leaks, so make sure you paste connections well. If you have it already, sorry for the newb remark! I had a leaky bag the other day, so I feel your pain. On my vac table, I opted to go away from paint because I was worried about it under vacuum and the surface I'd get. To test to see if it the paint causing the problem, may I suggest you only vac test a single square foot of your table? If you can't hold vacuum for a single foot of table; it would be a much better way of deciding whether you are leaking under the paint surface. You can also isolate the gauge and the outlets with valves. After you make a single foot work, start to make a move to the larger size slowly, like 1, 4, 9, 16 square feet of table. If you can't hold the vacuum at a certain point, you might realize you aren't pleating enough, or you have a table problem. I realize it sounds lame, but starting small can help.

 

I also bought a used vac leak detector and discovered the tape I was leaving on my inlet had epoxy shards on it that burst the bag on pressure. Any old epoxy in the new bag can spell trouble it seems. And I am only wet bagging, so not as critical, but I had leaks affect a part the other day, so I was kind of mad when I couldn't locate them. Too old and deaf I guess at 50.