Also those that say a vacuum pump won't work because the system will reach equilibrium are wrong. Equilibrium will only be reached in a closed system, attaching a pump that constantly draws a vacuum will remove any water vapor such that equilibrium will not be reached until all the water is gone. How long this take will depend on temperature and pressure, the higher the temp the greater the vacuum the quicker..... However the risk you take is further damage to the board.
Using a vacuum in a board which has extra holes drilled in will be fairly pointless and the rate of evaporation will be purely temp related as the pressure will be constant. Although a powerful pump may increase airflow enough to effect more efficient evaporation, but due to construction and small holes flow will be poor and this method will not be as effective as a vacuum.
as barn correctly stated a low vac will not boil of the moisture, well not for a very long time. a deep vac will boil off moisture but crush the board. as i was watching heaps of moisture was pouring out of the vac and as it was only dry nitro (contains no moisture) was entering the board, the method being used was working perfectly.
geez Dunk, un-salvagable?
you coming to gerroa for the comp on the weekend? if so, do you need to borrow a big lads wave board (just do up the screw)?
Sorry barn, even if your pump is controlled electronically such that when it reaches a certain pressure it switches off, what will happen then, is that water will evaporate filling the vacuum with water vapor, this will change the pressure such that the pump will come back on removing the water vapor and starting the process all over again and so on until the water is gone.
Scientists, chemist, and engineers have been using this method to remove water and solvents from system for decades if not centuries. And the efficacy of the process is directly related to temp and pressure, greater temp requires less vacuum, and vice versa.
Barn please explain the following; my garage reaches a max temperature of around 30 degrees there is negligble airflow, yet the puddle of water from my car airconditioner evaporates in less than about 45 mins. By your reasoning my garage must be under a huge vacuum or when I'm not looking reach temperatures of around 100 degrees.
Here is another experiment for you take half a glass of water, mark the water level and pull a sock over the glass place a cupboard .... Amazingly the water disappears, no vacuum, no boiling it must be magic.
Any pump that can maintain the pressure below atmospheric will speed up evaporation and pull moisture
You need none of that information to explain it, and if you truly understood the physics rather than having just googled it you would have known that.
I don't think the issue is whether it will or won't. Isn't it more about how quickly the water will evaporate?
Assuming the air isn't completely saturated and the water molecules are in liquid state evaporation will still occur. By adding a vacuum pump and/or air flow you are just speeding up the process. So yes, as long as the air within the garage isn't saturated the air-conditioning puddle will evaporate, as will the cup of water. If you were to seal off the cup completely, the air would eventually become completely saturated and thus the water level wouldn't continue to drop...
Of course there is also the difference between boiling and evaporation...
This is starting to sound like a conversation on "The Big Bang Theory". How about we all just remember to do up our vent screws before sailing problem solved
Doubt the Kiteys have these conversations ;) Just our extreme level of intelligence showing through 
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The garage analogy is not good as it is say 100ml of water in 100,000L of air space.
In a board we are talking up to maybe 1 litre of water in a 100L board which probably only has a couple of litres of air space in the styro. The air in the board becomes saturated very quickly and needs dry airflow through it to remove the water - and even better as the pump sucks a bit fater than the air can get in, the reduced pressure helps it vaporise.
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OK let's do a hypothetical 'Puddle In Garage' evaporation.
The date is January the 2nd. The temperature is 32.1 and the RH is 29%, it's 3pm.
www.bom.gov.au/climate/dwo/IDCJDW2801.latest.shtml
We have a 1 litre puddle, in a 6x6x3m double garage.
In our garage there are 108 cubic metres of air (6x6x3). At 32.1deg it can potentially hold 32g/m3 before saturation.
www.bom.gov.au/lam/humiditycalc.shtml
32g X 108m3 = 3.456kg of water vapour.
But the relative humidity is 29% when the garage is first shut. So the air in the garage is already holding 1.002kg of water vapour.
29% of 3.456kg = 1.002kg of water
(relative humidity is what the Air is currently holding compared to its potential holding)
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In conclusion, in this closed system, Drj's hypothetical garage can soak up his 1 litre puddle, and the humidity will rise to...
100 X ((1.002L + 1.000L) / 3.456L) =
58% humidity.
We can soak up another 1L puddle without it raining.
(sorry I've been out of the loop for a few minutes)
^^ is that your idea of an explanation ??? You explain nothing, you still have not explained how a puddle evaporates without a vacuum at low temperatures.
All you have proved is that you can use google !
EDIT * Also I never suggested the garage was a closed system indeed if it was it is highly unlikely that the puddle would completely evaporate, this is why bottles of water in supermarket shelves don't become empty over time
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^^^^^^^
Ha ha ha ha .... Seriously you should publish your theories you might win a prize .... "When humidity is high nothing evaporates" that's a gem, it's a **** attempt at an explanation, but it is in itself gold.
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