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As part of some shop reorganization, I built this mobile clamp rack with a go bar deck on top. It holds the deck, the dishes, the go bars, 50 different clamps, and two vises. Here is the front:





Here is the left side:



Here is the right side:




Here is the go bar deck:




The go bar deck has a torsion box on the bottom. The posts are plastic conduit, with 1/4"-20 all thread rod for the tension. There are 4" pieces of conduit with washers above the upper deck, which I can put below the upper deck to raise the upper deck enough to close guitar bodies without switching go bars. Doing it this way also avoids the need for a booster seat for bracing tops and backs.

The go bar deck sits a bit high for some work, so if/when I will want it to sit lower, I can just unscrew the jig knobs that hold it on the clamp rack and move the go bar deck over to my workbench. So, not unlike the USS Enterprise D, I can separate the saucer section:

Lovely!

Well done, and that's a good looking bench in the last photo. How have you kept the movable jaw of the vice from sagging - I put carefully sized pieces on the bottom of the top for the screws to ride on, but I still get sagging.

Ed

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Ed—

I haven’t put any effort into solving the problem of the traveling jaw having wiggle room to sag a bit. I figure it’s baked into the design, since there aren’t guide rails like some vises have. But, as William Faulkner said: “You don’t love because: you love despite; not for the virtues, but despite the faults.”

I get a lot of good use out of the twin screw vise. My bench is 30” wide, so it is just perfect for holding neck and fingerboard blanks with edges or ends facing up. And with the right kind of foam, the jaws open wide enough to hold a guitar body like a twin pipe clamp vise or a Troji would. I would like to find a type of foam that is just slightly softer than what I currently use, but what I use works pretty well. The vise can be a bit fiddly, but I’m glad I have it.

The bench as a whole is wonderful to work on. The top is a regular 60” x 30” x 1 3/4” laminated maple industrial benchtop that you can buy lots of places. I put 3/4” dog holes at 6” intervals, 3” in from the edge all around and a row down the middle, and in the traveling jaw of the twin screw vise. The dog holes take holdfasts, jig knobs (through the bench, into threaded inserts or tee nuts in the bottoms of special workboards), vise mounting bolts, bench dogs, etc. The legs are cast iron, from Lee Valley. I built the bench about 12 years ago, and I consider it one of the smarter things I did when first setting up shop in this house. The one thing I will probably do in the next few years is replace the top with something the exact same width and length, but thicker. The current thickness is fine for working on, but a thicker top will have more room for flattening the top over time. 1 3/4” doesn’t give me a lot to plane away when I flatten the top,which I did recently. I might have to build the top myself, because thick laminated benchtops (more than 2” or so) are really expensive.

That's a great design Don. I have zero additional floor space to roll anything else around in but still inspired - nice work...

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Thank You and Best To All

Nice Concept

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