A few important developments this past weekend:

I upgraded the vacuum chamber to a larger size. I picked up a nice 5" round glass vase from a local craft store.  From left to right is the current progression of chambers so far. The far left original chamber was too small and had only a single passthrough for both the vacuum and high voltage. It ended up getting way too hot way too quickly. The middle chamber was suffered from a crack due to running the device too long and generating heat that wasn't dissipated. 

Another development from the weekend was that I decided to research magnetron design and to construct a sputtering head that will be in the chamber. Using what I learned from various papers and from watching the "Applied Science" channel video on Sputtering - I designed and 3d printed a sleeve that was used to create a metal casting for the magnetron. 

Shown above are some various parts of the disassembled sputtering head. Hopefully it will all come together this week.