Over the past 6 years the instrumentation team at the NASA IR Telescope Facility (IRTF) has designed and built 3 major facility instruments, two cameras and a spectrometer, for use by the IR astronomical community. We will report on many new techniques for cryostat construction that have been developed that deviate from traditional practices. These include aluminum electron beam welded vacuum and cryogenic enclosures, rectangular cryostat formats, use of closed cycle coolers and their performance, use of all aluminum structures, optimization of cryogenic performance without super insulation, activated charcoal getters, and optomechanical mounting. Cryostat performance data and methods for estimating cryostat performance will also be included.
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