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Go-Bar Deck

Brent Dowell

Brent Dowell

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Went to home depot the other day and picked up a sheet of MDF (Holy cow, MDF Prices!) and some 1" electrical conduit and 3/8" all thread.

Managed to get the tablesaw and workbench cleared off and made my Go-Bar deck today. Now I just need to figure out how to make some go bars. I've seen commercial versions that use fiberglass sticks, but having a bit of a problem sourcing those right now, or I don't want to pay what they want for them. I figure worst case scenario, I can rip some strips of clear, straight grained pine to a thickness that would provide the right about of bend.

Guitar back included for scale.

Next step is to power up the cnc and get some radius dishes made.

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Thanks to Ryan, He suggested fiberglass plant stakes as go-bars. I've never seen fiberglass plant stakes, until I looked on Amazon, lol. I've ordered some and we'll see how they work next week. Should be about 68 cents per bar if they work.
 
The fiberglass plant stake idea sounds like it should work great. :thumb:

For some reason, every time I see "Go-Bar" in this thread title I picture one of these...
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Since I know absolutely nothing about music, except I know i can't sing or play an instrument....

What is a go bar?

I do like the one Vaughn shows... looks very convenient.... and in Tennessee would probably make house calls in the mountains... the barrel out front might be full of moonshine.
 
It's a clamping jig used in the glue up of braces to the back or front of acoustic instruments.

In addition, the bottom surface can have a radius dish to it, so that the back or front will have a built in curve applied to it for either directing sound or providing additional structural integrity to the instrument.

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Question from someone who is not a Luthier and never made any instrument. Is there any difference between using go bars and weights? From my understanding go bars are used to apply pressure in spots that one cannot reach with normal clamps because their arms are short.
 
Toni Ciuraneta said:
Question from someone who is not a Luthier and never made any instrument. Is there any difference between using go bars and weights? From my understanding go bars are used to apply pressure in spots that one cannot reach with normal clamps because their arms are short.
Click to expand...
The go bars can exert more force to a smaller and more localized area than weights could. They also help force and maintain the radius of the piece the wooden braces are being glued to, which would be more difficult with clamps.
 
+1 on what Vaughn said. There are other ways to do the glue ups, but this just makes it more efficient and accurate.

Weights would work, but be kind of difficult to work with due to the number and layout of the braces.
 
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