Go-Bar Deck - - - "How To" Questions

[Gordon Bellerose]

I am making a Go-Bar Clamping Deck, and I am wondering if anyone could enlighten me a bit.
I've been through 9 pages in this section of the forum and can't find anything on that.

1. On the top piece of plywood, do you drill holes underneath to put the end of the bars in, for better stability?
2. If I use 3/4 inch plywood, do I have to double up on the bottom? I'm thinking that the 3/4 plywood would be plenty stiff enough, but I may be wrong.

[Bob Hammond]

If the bottom is already on a sturdy bench, then another layer is not necessary. BTW, are you going to make a dish for the bottom? The top is not so important. but I can think of some interesting ideas-

1) It might not be a bad idea to make it a box-beam construction for more stiffness.

2) I've never seen or heard of it, but at one time I thought about routing very shallow grooves on the top with a 1/4 straight or vee bit to make a better gripping surface for the sticks.

3) If you can, you might mount the top plate to the ceiling/joists above the bench, because then you would have a very stiff plate and also no columns to work around when you're placing the sticks (which could be very convenient at times). You could also use the underside of a heavily weighted shelf.

4) For sticks, you could got to big-box store and buy some fiberglass driveway marker poles; they're about 3/8" diameter and 4ft long, so you might get two sticks from each pole. You'd need to come up with some soft tips for the poles.

[Gordon Bellerose]

Thanks for your reply Bob.
I splurged and bought a 25' dish for the top, and a 15' dish for the back. After reading a bit about routing a dish out of MDF, I thought it would be easier and cleaner to buy them.

I will be using the deck on a very flat hard surface.


1. I think that with the 3/4 inch plywood, not MDF, and a radius dish it should be stiff enough.

2. The grooves sound like a good idea. They would not have to be deep, and would be quick to do. Alternately I might mark out a grid, and use the plunge router with a 3/8 round bit and make a bunch of 1/8 deep holes.

3. Not possible in my shop. The ceiling is finished, and all my top shelves come within 20 inches of the counter. It is not an issue to use long threaded rods on each corner. They make it adjustable also.

4. As I was on the web site anyway, I also bought the bars. A bit expensive I know, but they are on the way.

[Mark Swanson]

No need to drill or groove the top. The bars stay put, I haven't heard of anyone including me having trouble with that. Also, it's very easy to cut your own bars out of whatever you have on hand.

[Gordon Bellerose]

Thanks Mark. As you can see, I have changed directions for my acoustic build.
I didn't know if I had to drill holes, or cut grooves to help the bars stick.
After thinking about it a bit more, it might be harder to get the bar in "Just The Right Place" if it was limited to hole positions.

[Jason Rodgers]

I made my deck about 8 years ago out of two 24"x24" layers of 3/4" MDF on the top and bottom, 1/2" threaded rod for the uprights (with tubing over the rod to avoid dinging my tops and back into them), and adhesive-backed cork sheet (for drawers/shelves) on the underside of the top for grip. My bars are the yellow and orange fiberglass road reflector rods available at the big box stores with rubber caps and a point sanded onto the other end (my daughter says they look like really long pencils).

As Bob suggests, if you don't plan on moving it around, figure out a way to build it into a bench/wall/shelf/ceiling. If I was going to do it again, I'd do something like this...
- Two 24"x48" sheets of 3/4" plywood laminated for the top (the MDF works fine, but with a deck full of bars, it does bow the top a little). With a wider deck, I could glue up a top and a back at the same time.
- 3/4" steel pipe for the uprights with flanges. I might even try suspending it from the ceiling. This can be done without uglying up the drywall too much.
- Cork sheet on the underside of the top.

The length of bars, if you don't plan ahead, will be a frustration. My bars are 24" long, and my deck is somewhere around 32-33" tall. The bars are long enough to glue tops/backs with a few things stacked under the dish (my PC router case is just the right height!), and then long enough to glue tops and backs to ribs with the stack of stuff removed.

Before gluing anything for real, do a couple dry test runs on scrap. Getting the feel for bending and positioning the rods and balancing them on the edge of braces is a good thing, before you go load up your first top that you've spent many diligent hours crafting (don't ask me how I know this!).

[Bob Hammond]

A selection of bars of slightly different lengths might be useful for thicker or thinner braces.

[Alan Carruth]

For my first go-bar deck I just screwed a piece of plywood to the ceiling above one of the benches. The ceiling was low, and it was easy to get/make sticks of the right length. I've got a higher ceiling in my current shop, so I built torsion boxes to put up so that I could use the same sticks. I store the sticks in the boxes.

If you use bars of different lengths, code the ends somehow, and keep them sorted out. It's always a drag to grab a bar that's just too short, or so long that it's hard to spring and tends to pop out. I put stripes around both ends with a magic marker.

[Gordon Bellerose]

Thanks for all the tips fellas! The cork sheet on the top sounds like a good idea, but I am wondering if it would fall apart after a while.
The ceiling in my shop is loaded up with lights, and is not a good candidate for this type of job.

I am using 1/2 inch threaded rod 36 inches long at each corner. I can lower or raise it fairly quickly using wing nuts.
It does have to be quickly disassembled for storage as my shop is also my garage, and I do park actual cars in it!!

I can get some plastic tubing to cover the bottom portion of the rods to protect the guitar wood.

I will look for the traffic flag holders if I need more bars.

[Simon Magennis]

Have a look at the middle picture, second row from the bottom.
http://www.stollguitars.de/de/portfolio ... rettyPhoto

A multi-story go-bar deck in a pro workshop.

[Jason Rodgers]

I saw someone around here use pipe clamps for the corner rods and the sliding part to adjust the height. Can't remember how that was set up, but it was pretty cool and adjusted quickly.

[Randy Roberts]

If you're concerned about the go bars slipping, you can glue sandpaper to the surface of the top. Easier is to just cut bars from whatever scrap wood is lying around. You can glue a patch of sandpaper to one end of those easily. I've not found it to be needed myself ( only one explosion in a dozen years).

[Bob Hammond]

Gordon, Here's another detail of my deck, and pic of using the go-bar deck for a different purpose.

The columns are 1/4" all-thread rod that are under tension and compressing the top & bottom plates between tubes of electrical conduit (or could be pipe). The tubes are set in recesses made with a Forstner bit.

Here I'm using the go-bar deck to glue up a chessboard. The board is made by edge-gluing 2" stripes of maple and walnut, and the crosscut this glueup into 2" widths. Then every other crosscut strip is flipped to produce the checkerboard layout. Now, because the crosscut strips have a tendency to curl because of the grain orientation, so then I need to clamp the strips edge-to-edge precisely in register as well as tamp down the strip so that the board remains flat. I use the parallel wedges to provide lateral pressure that is carefully controlled and evenly distributed, and the go-bars and cauls provide even downward pressure. I'm gluing only one strip at a time, so that it's much easier keep the strips in register. You could use a similar technique to glue up the soundboard and backplate, but go easy on the pressures or you'll starve the joint of glue.

Just another little detail. The parallel wedges were offcuts from another project and have identical tapers (~1:6 or 1:8), and are phenolic-faced baltic-birch plywood. I found that the phenolic faces allow them to slide easily on a surface, and yet the edge-faces with the long tapers hold quite well. I should remember to drill and glue 1" dowels into the wide ends to made them easier to both set and separate.

[Mario Proulx]

I built my 8' long go bar bench 12 years ago; for the upper, I used GOS (good one side) spruce plywood. The go bars dig into the spruce and never slip or move, yet there's still not any appreciable wear. After 12 years in a "pro" shop. Avoid using MDF or anything smooth and hard for the upper.

Mine is solid, non-adjustable. I have 2 lengths of go bars, one length for general clamping tasks and a shorter length for closing bodies. I have several 2' x 2' x 5/8" MDF "risers" to place my work onto for anything in between. I make my go bars from whatever hardwood scraps I find, though most of them are birch. Make the go bars rectangular, and they won't spin or twist on you in use, as they'll only bend in one direction; much, MUCH more stable than round go bars.

[AL Lombardo]

I've read somewhere a few yrs back that kite specialty shops sell light weight fiberglass sticks for people that build such custom kites and they make terrific go bar rods

[Jim McConkey]

Into The Wind

[Bob Gramann]

My Home Depot sells this perfectly clear Chilean pine back in the whitewood section. I pick a board with straight grain and slice it into sticks varying the thickness according to how strong I want it to be. $10 buys a whole lot of go bar sticks.

[Mark Swanson]

I agree with Bob, far easier to cut your own and they work better, for much cheaper.

[Clay Schaeffer]

If you visit the jam session you will see where Kathy Matsushita has a link to her new website. If you visit her website you will find a video on improvements to her go bar deck. The adjustable top plate Jason mentioned and a swiveling mechanism she added are two things I found interesting.