Thanks for stopping by the site. I’ll have to check out Kinkade’s book. I had heard it was a good one. Your guitar is very nice and you play it well. I’m still working on this one as it is a project to fill in between other projects for me!

–Mark

Yeah, the Go-Bar Deck is a pretty neat fixture – perfect for this kind of application.

In the commercial versions of the Go-Bar Decks, the rods are usually fiberglass so they can bend and return to form without issue. In the old days, I would think that they were probably made from thin strips of a hardwood that has some elasticity (maybe Ash or something like that). I could have gone that route but, I tried the wooden dowel rods instead – a flat strip of wood actually may have been a better choice because it probably has less tendency to shatter. I did find a source of some fiberglass rods (salvaged from a different purpose) that you’ll see in the next post.

The glue squeeze-out is a bit of a pain…I have been waiting until it gels and trying to get in there with a pointy piece of scrap and a wet cloth (no risk of finish issues here because the inside will not receive any). Of course doing this without moving any of the clamping rods is quite interesting, to say the least!

–Mark

As I may have already mentioned, I know *nothing* about making musical instruments. But I did not even have to look up the term Go-Bar Deck, as I learned it yesterday while reading a post at Lumberjocks. What a neat solution to a complicated glue-up!

1) Are the go-bars are usually fiberglass? ‘

2) Were they made of wood in the old days? And would laminated bars be better than rods?

3) How do you clean glue squeeze-out under the braces? I wonder if you scrape it clean after it gels a little…

Thanks, Mark!