let me warn against over clamping! too much pressure is as bad as not enough. 8lbs of force is just right for braces and most all joints with hhg or pva

That may be true but sometimes you need a little extra to bend the wood into position e.g. when gluing a ladder braced back to the rim. I've got 3/16" rods and 1/4" - there's no way the 3/16" rods would have bent the back to meet the heel and tail and provided 8lbs force.

Andy I have built roughly 50 ladder braced back. I attached all but 4 to my rims using my go-bar deck and 3/16" bars.
now if you are using radisued braces glued to the backs in a radiused dish, the back will be very close to the rim shape anyway. So I am not seeing the problem But my intent is not to be argumentative. Also to note the rod lengths used to attach a back and side to a rim in a fixed height go-bar deck will be 3 to 4.5" shorter than those used to clamp braces to plates. This shorter column height make 3/16" dia rods much stiffer .

As to length of the rods, I use 24" rods and a 24" deck height for all my go bar-ing, I just bend them more to glue tops and backs. That's the great thing about fiberglass rods is once they've bent, they provide the same pressure irrespective of how much they're deformed. Shortening the length is a good way to get more pressure though.

one thing in the Mayes' tapes that bothers me is when he is gluing on the braces and his face is pretty close to the gobars with no eye protection. I hope he is taking better safty precautions these days. Although he might be able to pull off the pirate eye patch look.