I'd see what the machine is intended for. If it does get the nice high vacuum needed for evaporation coatings (I might also note that various people can call the same basic process by different things) then I'd get it for the pumps alone and then modify the baseplate as necessary to do evaporation of aluminum. Bob May http://nav.to/bobmay bobmay@nethere.com NEW! http://bobmay.astronomy.net