Go Bar Deck

[kiwigeo]

A few pics for all you budding luthiers. No doubt youve experienced the inconvenience of juggling 10 sets of clamps while gluing down braces. Well here's an easier way of clamping up a glue job..its called a Gobar deck and its an old Chinese device that's been around for centuries. Clamping pressure is applied by flexed 900mm lengths (on my deck) of 10mm diameter dowels of hoop pine between an upper deck and the piece being glued. If you want to get fancy you can go for fibreglass Gobars with rubber tips on the end. The guitar on the deck in the pics is the classical from previous post.

[Doughboy]

The old ways are usually reliable and effective...

great pics

Pete

[kiwigeo]

Alot to be said for cabinet scrapers too......they're a P in the proverbial to get honed up but a cabinet scraper is the best thing for working a top to final thickness or scraping back bindings.

[Harry72]

Ahhhh so thats how you do it!

[kiwigeo]

Cab scrapers and an arsenal of scraper planes. Most used scraper plane is an old Millers Falls beast I picked up at the local market. Paid a bit too much for the thing but it's great on Rosewood where the grain is all over the place.

Alot of serious luthiers invest in drum sanders to take the hard work out of thicknessing tops but hey...youre not going to develop Arnie Swarzeneger sized biceps feeding spruce through a drum sander!!

[Strungout]

Hi Martin,

I have just started making one BUT the one I am making is only 600mm (2ft) high.

I Got the details off Stewmacs web site.Why is yours so high or ,more like is the one I am making too small?

I picked up some 5mm (3/16) fibreglass rods and put some rubber caps on them for the go bars. (Again off the stewmac site)

Do you think these will do?

Thanks

Greg

[kiwigeo]

Greg,

Dimensions for my deck came from measurements taken of a fellow luthiers deck a few years back. The higher clearance makes it easier getting in under the top deck when working on items. I often leave a top with freshly glued braces clamped in the gobar deck for brace working.

Youll notice my deck has an adjustable bottom floor. This is to allow adjustment for different height items that are being clamped.

If youre using the Stewmac fibreglass rods then your probably best sticking to the Stewmac deck design. 600mm does seem a bit low but if you go for a higher deck then youll have to use longer gobars.

I use wooden dowels as a cost saving measure....down side is they develop a permanent bend after a while and ocasionally they snap when flexed. Important to always bend the dowels away from you and I also wear safety glasses as an added precaution.

[Strungout]

Hi Martin.

I think your reply makes a lot of sence.I should have asked first!!.
Looking at the stewmac site again,the distance between the top and bottom is 900mm (Woops) but the rods are only 600mm.

I found the fibreglass rods cheaper than the dowels. The 5mm worked out about $3.00 per mtr.

Anyway I might go back to the drawing board!!

Greg

[kiwigeo]

Greg,

900mm sounds about right. If you like you can make the decks a bit bigger. I use LMI dished forms for my steel strings so the deck is big enough to take these forms.

[HiString]

Great pics. I actually saw this method in use at the Maton factory quite some years ago but never knew it had an actual name.

Today hasn't been wasted as I've learnt something new :) .

:cool:

[Slavo]

Where are the Go-Go dancers?

[kiwigeo]

The workshop is a "clean" area...the dancers are next door in the garage...the designated "dirty" area. :D

[dayvo]

A very nice setup:cool:
By the way thanks for the link to guitaraust;)
Just changing the subject have you heard of Jim Redgate over at Noarlunga?
He builds acoustics and sells them around the world
Does very nice work
dayvo

[kiwigeo]

Yes I know of Jim. He's getting back on his feet after suffering a major fire in his workshop last year.