What I need to make good use of my vacuum plate and bell jar...

I would like to use my vacuum plate and bell jar to develop some demonstrations (basically, I want to play and show neat stuff). The problems are these:

1. I do not have any electrical pass-throughs for the plate. I have thought of drilling it and tapping to accept spark plugs; is there a better way?

2. I do not have a way to pump in gases, so if I wanted to make a plasma of argon or some other gas I'm kind of stuck.

3. I do not have a good way to measure the vacuum (though one of the projects I would love to do is to make a sensor and display).

4. I do not have anything better than a standard mechanical lab vacuum pump. I have two, they are decent, but they're no diffusion pumps.

My plate is an older version of the one you can see at Sargent-Welch, and my bell jar is a typical bell jar about a foot high and about eight or ten inches in diameter. I think we have one other bell jar in the department storage room...I need to go see whether it is different in any way.

So, what are my options?