Building a go bar deck and radius boards on the cheap

[Jim]

Hi All,

Just finished building a go bar deck and some radius dishes. After looking at the prices for all this kind of stuff at stewmac and on ebay I managed to do it well on the cheap instead. I thought I'd post some links up for anyone thinking of doing the same sort of thing and looking at a starting point.

I used the stewmac plans for a go bar deck:

http://www.stewmac.com/How-To/Online_Re ... _Deck.html

and sourced the stuff from local hardware stores.

I got 4.5mm fiberglass rods from Permex. They're in Sydney and do a lot of sailing type stuff. I rang them up and they cut them to the length I specified. (600mm) They worked out a $1.40 ish each and postage cost around $10.

http://www.permex.com.au/contact_us.htm

A friend works as a DT teacher and has access to a CNC router. I sent her a CRV dish file I downloaded from the vectric forum here:

http://forum.vectric.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7548

She put the parameters in the file. I'm using 25mm MDF cut 595mm square. The diameter of the dish is 580mm.

I used this site to get the formula for the depth of the cut:

http://liutaiomottola.com/formulae/sag.htm

So for a bottle of wine and supplied MDF she's going to make me a 15ft dish and a 40 ft dish.

Hopefully this will help somebody down the track.

Cheers
Jim

[routout]

Cool Jim ,I bought some of that yellow plastic coated rod 6mm from a place that made it for electrical guys they screwed it together to pull cable how long ago I can't remember works great .Nice work there budget is my middle name I make all my tools as well rite down to chisels

[Jim]

I'm with you there John. Couldn't bring myself to pay $6 for the stewmac ones. These guys even had a graph showing how much pressure each diameter of rod had when bent.

Jim

[Steve.Toscano]

Nice work.... Go bar decks are a funny thing, I went to the trouble of building one, then realised I didnt need it .
Instead I ended up cutting my radius dishes to the rough and slightly oversized shape of the plantilla i use, and found I could reach the middle with long reach cam clamps.
Not only are my dishes now half the weight they were, i also don't have a gobar system taking up space in the workshop.

On the note of radius dishes, John at Labels Extreme is highly recommended. If my memory serves me correct comes to about $100 - $110 per dish delivered.

[routout]

True the gobar type thing can become obsolete so i do use the method for other things I clamp the good part is you kind of get more control with the rod then I use blocks with the rod recessed in ,then i do make some crazy stuff all good fun.

[kiwigeo]

Nice work.... Go bar decks are a funny thing, I went to the trouble of building one, then realised I didnt need it .
Instead I ended up cutting my radius dishes to the rough and slightly oversized shape of the plantilla i use, and found I could reach the middle with long reach cam clamps.
Not only are my dishes now half the weight they were, i also don't have a gobar system taking up space in the workshop.

On the note of radius dishes, John at Labels Extreme is highly recommended. If my memory serves me correct comes to about $100 - $110 per dish delivered.

Horses for courses of course but when it comes to cleaning up glue squeeze out....much easier on a go bar deck than trying to get in around cam clamps.

[jeffhigh]

I use them for just about everything including fitting soundboard and back to rims.

I like the way you can just space them all along a brace at 40mm or so to get uniform pressure and do a complete bracing layout in one go.
I use strips of merbau about 15X4 with a set of shorter lengths for closing the box.

The full round radius dish is great for sanding rims, linings and blocks,

[kiwigeo]

I use them for just about everything including fitting soundboard and back to rims.

I like the way you can just space them all along a brace at 40mm or so to get uniform pressure and do a complete bracing layout in one go.
I use strips of merbau about 15X4 with a set of shorter lengths for closing the box.

The full round radius dish is great for sanding rims, linings and blocks,

I bought a bunch of the fancy fibreglass rods but never used them.....I use lengths of 8mm diameter hoop pine with the ends rounded. A few of them snap from time to time but nothing better to keep you on your toes and teach you not to stand in the line of fire when flexing the rods. My go bar deck is transvestite........it has a false bottom which can be height adjusted to allow for differing thickness of item being clamped.

[Craig Bumgarner]

I too built a go-bar deck. It took up a lot of room in my small shop and deep wood cam clamps do the job better for me. My tops are not a constant camber which makes the GBD not so useful anyway. For rods, I cut 5mm x 15mm willow oak pieces in lieu of fiberglass, worked well. If you make your own deck, be sure the top and bottom plates are very rigid, otherwise when you put a lot of rod up, it will flex these plates and some of your previously set rods might fall out. Wood rods are nice because then can be "tuned" for the right amount of flex to bend in well and not fall out when the plates flex.

I made three dishes from MDO particle board using a router sled ala: http://acousticblog.mokkou.jp/?p=44 I used a center pin instead of the end cleats, but same idea. $10 each. Unlike the go-bar deck, I still use the dishes all the time.

[Dave M]

Think I have said this elsewhere before but... I glued my two dishes back to back to give added stiffness and they are a bit easier to store. Of course I tend to only building one guitar at a time!

[blackalex1952]

I too use wooden rods. I have 12mm Clark Rubber 'chair tips' on the ends of the rods. The black rubber ones mark the timber, but the white ones don't.-Ross

[Steve.Toscano]

Horses for courses of course

So true.

but when it comes to cleaning up glue squeeze out.. much easier on a go bar deck than trying to get in around cam clamps.

Using drinking straws cut off in a V shape I can get in under the clamps very easily to remove glue squeeze out, even with only 4mm high classical braces. Squeeze the straw to get underneath.

However on my later builds I've been marking the location of the braces, then running strips of plastic tape on each side on the soundboard on either side of the where the brace goes, glue down the braces, and any glue squeeze out goes onto the tape.
After removing clamps - Gently run a razor blade down the side of the braces, to remove the glue stuck on the side. Remove tape from soundboard and ..... cowabunga, brace is exactly where i wanted it (edge of the tape stops it sliding around), and i have zero glue squeeze out left behind.

Apart from the space they take up what i dont like about go bar setups is the clamping pressure is not easily adjustable, with cam clamps can easily go from super light to super heavy while still keeping them all uniform, in fact more uniform then a go bar system where you have to take into account radius of the dish.
I'm mostly making fan braced classicals and I need to apply just the right amount of pressure so that i don't get press through on the top of the soundboard.

[Jim]

The one thing I haven't found an easy/quick solution for is caps for the 4.5mm rods? Anyone have any bright ideas on this front?

[Steve.Toscano]

The one thing I haven't found an easy/quick solution for is caps for the 4.5mm rods? Anyone have any bright ideas on this front?

The tips here: http://www.lmii.com/products/tools-serv ... bar-clamps
are 3/16 in inside diameter, which is 4.7mm

[simso]

I love the go bar deck, it does however take up a lot of bench space, I have been contemplating making a jig that allows it to drop into the workbench when not in use and raises out as required

Steve

[kiwigeo]

Apart from the space they take up what i dont like about go bar setups is the clamping pressure is not easily adjustable, with cam clamps can easily go from super light to super heavy while still keeping them all uniform, in fact more uniform then a go bar system where you have to take into account radius of the dish.
I'm mostly making fan braced classicals and I need to apply just the right amount of pressure so that i don't get press through on the top of the soundboard.

Agree with your comments on variability of cam clamp pressure. One reason I prefer the go bar deck for small items is that I find cam clamps always have a small amount of sideways component to clamping pressure.

[kiwigeo]

I love the go bar deck, it does however take up a lot of bench space, I have been contemplating making a jig that allows it to drop into the workbench when not in use and raises out as required

Steve

My deck breaks down into two panels and four posts which can be stashed away if I don't need it for a while. If I'm not using it for short periods its a perfect place to stash crap.

[Dave M]

I have been waiting for someone to point this out but... You don't need an actual go bar deck. A strongly built shelf above a workbench does just the job. Nothing to store, and you get some more storage space on the shelf as well.
I do height adjustment by simply packing under the dish.

Dave

[Dave M]

Jim assuming you are in Oz this won't help but for people in the UK - I struggled to find rubber tips for my wooden rods but eventually found this company: essentracomponents

I use their white rubber tips. They don't leave rubber but they do leave greasy marks. Not a problem when you are going to do a bit of sanding afterwards but I use pieces of card when holding down the panels.

[kiwigeo]

I've never bothered with tips on my wooden dowels. The tops of braces are going to be worked anyway so small dents don't matter. Where denting would be an issue I stick a small piece of thin cork between the end of the dowel and the work.

[Jim]

Thanks a lot Dave and Steve for the tips on the tips...

[routout]

I have acquired some 6mm fiberglass rods 900mm long (200 off) with a job lot I have the 5 mm that I need, but these 6mm have a force of 3 Kg as they start to bend thought it might need a rather large go bar deck ,thing is it doubles at 450mm long might be slight overkill for gluing I have some of the electrical flexy stuff 3Kg at 500mm long that I use ,just some thoughts