[Alex, Torrey, Daniel]

We vented and rotated the vacuum oven so that I could more easily access the back of the oven to tighten the hose clamp around the vacuum oven nozzle. I used (and returned) a ratchet with a Philips attachment from Nick Hutzler's Lab which is very useful and we should buy. We rotated it back, and I evacuated the oven for 30 minutes and it got down to 15 Torr, the same as before tightening. I turned the pump off and kept the valve to the pump open. 20 hours later, the pressure rose to ~28 Torr. This is a slight improvement of the 30 Torr after 20 hours from the previous test. I cannot tighten the hose clamp further because the hose is starting to get shreded. I think 15 Torr is about the best we are going to get with this oven and pump.

I am now going to bake out the oven itself at 200°C for 48 hours. Assuming that goes well, I think the oven is ready to use.