Depening on what you are doing with the CF you don't need an oven or the ability to pull a vacuum. There are several different ways to do CF.
The easiest and least equipment intensive way is to just do a wet layup like you would with fiberglass using a standard weave CF mat. Depending on the resin you use you can cure it with a heat lamp or sometimes even at room temperature. You can use an oven if you have one but its not required. This is acceptable for anything that is not structural in nature. If it is to bear a load of any kind wet layup is not consistent enough to make a very structurally sound piece.
Another step up would be using a vacuum assisted resin injection, the commercial name of which is Skrimp. This is a little more equipment intensive but works great for larger pieces where you couldn't get the proper resin penetration using a wet layup. This can again be a room temp/ heat lamp cure or use an oven. This method is acceptable for some non-critical structural pieces.
For the most uniform pieces you can get pre-preg CF. This comes from the factory preimpregnated with resin. This is the defacto standard for structural pieces in applications such as aviation. The problem is that pre-preg requires refrigeration to keep the resin from hardening and generally requires high cure temps for it to cure properly. Essentially, you must have an oven to use pre-preg CF.
If you have money and I mean a lot of money, just about the best thing to cure CF in is a pressurized autoclave. You seal the CF in the mold, pull vacuum on it, and then pressurize the autoclave. This makes the CF conform to the mold very well and is used for parts that require high accuracy.
One thing that you do need to remember is that a raw CF composite without a gel coat or something of that nature will be brittle. CF will bend 5-10X more than steel before it breaks but it will shatter almost like glass if its hit hard enough.
I'm currently a student worker at the MSU Raspet Flight Research Lab. Thats where I learned what I know about CF composites. http://shrike.erc.msstate.edu/raspet/index.html
We do a lot of composite work for aviation applications. We have a 10' X 55' 300psi autoclave that we cook CF airplane wings in. The most recent project we had was the design, fabrication and development of steel wool composite molds to be used in production of CF fuselage parts for a VTOL aircraft for DuPont Aerospace.
