a pseudo go-bar deck

[Ken Nagy]

I thought it would be good to have one, especially to put the braces on the back of the early Staufer I'm building. I tried doing that on the little guitar I made for the grandsons, and I couldn't get it to bend lengthwise at all! I thought of my adjustable table, and the ceiling. I saw that some use a shelf on the wall for a deck; why not the ceiling?

It is made from 4 two foot long 2X4's and a 4 X 2 sheet of 1/2 plywood. I needed a 2 foot length to get the distance between the highest the table would go to the deck down to about 22 inches. Split two 2/4's in half for posts, and the others in fours for braces. The plywood is cut for a 2 X 2 deck, and the rest into four 3" wide pieces to mount the deck.

I was going to use 1/2 dowel stock I have, but it is oversize. I had a couple pieces of some kind of 1/2 plastic that is on size, so I used that. They don't do much, the thing has to be (massaged) into place.

The posts WERE square; both on the ceiling, and on the deck; but after screwing, and gluing them on the deck, when I put it on the ceiling, I ended up with tilt. Cool. It fits on tight, and is really stable, so I will block the table up off the wheels; that should make it more stable anyways; and set the one side up higher.

I just need to buy another 2 X 4, I don't have anything laying around.

Until I get the base for the table, and make up a form for the back arches, and make some sticks; I'm not really sure it even works!

I have a 4 foot long 2 X 4 to cut into sticks. 3/4" by what? I have no idea.

[Steven Smith]

Anything that works is good and looks like it should work fine. I would not leave instruments too close to a go-bar deck, sometimes the go-bars come loose and shoot out with a fair amount of force.

[Bryan Bear]

That's pretty similar to what I use. My deck is higher because I use longer thicker bars but basically the same. it is nice to have easy access all around the deck and to not have to store it away when not in use. The deck makes a good shelf too for various items. Hopefully it is high enough that you won't be bumping your head on it as you lean over the table for other uses.

[Alan Carruth]

Put on some diagonal bracing, or plywood skins, to keep it from racking. There's a lot of pressure when you have a bunch of bars in place, and even a little bit of sideways force (which is hard to avoid) would start it racking. Once it starts it's going to keep going, and that could get catastrophic.

I came to the same sort of solution about 25 years ago. I'd moved into a new shop, lost the use of the vacuum clamp setup, and needed an alternative in a hurry. The ceiling was low, so I just screwed a piece of plywood up over a bench top, and hey presto! When I moved to my new shop, with somewhat higher ceilings, I made torsion boxes of plywood to get the height above the go-bar deck down to what it had been. I left the front of the boxes (which are 6"-8" deep) open, and use those spaces to stow the dowels when they're not in use. I have several lengths of bars, some for low braces and some for higher ones, so they're not too sprung, which invites go-bar explosions.

[Bryan Bear]

Alan bring up a good point about racking. My deck is 8 1/2 inches from the ceiling and supported by 6 sections of 2x4 so I don't really notice any racking. Your supports are very long so more susceptible to it.

It is difficult to get the bars lined up so that the ends are directly above one another. If they are not, they will provide some amount of lateral force. The first bar may shift the deck a tiny amount but the second bar will add to it. You tend to have the tops of the bars about as far away from each other as the bottoms so you are essentially copying the error and multiplying that small lateral force every time you add a bar.

[Alan Carruth]

.... and once the frame starts to rack further movement serves to relieve the stress of the thrust of the bars that do align. At least I'd put up some diagonals to the joists outboard of the deck itself, all the way around. Plywood skins on three sides would help a lot, too, and then you could put some shelves in. No shop ever had enough storage....

[John LaCroix]

When I made my deck, I suspended it using iron pipe with flanges that I got from home depot. Cheap and strong. I put carpet and partitions on the top to store guitar bodies and such if I happen to be working on more than one thing at a time.