How Convert dining table to Drop Leaf???

Mon, Jan 28, 2008, 7:57am (EST-3) [email protected] (sandy) doth sayeth:
My tiny 650 square foot cabin needs a small dining table. <snip>
Thanks! Be nice to have a real table to eat at and be able to have
company for dinner!

If you want to make something, I'd say one of those tilt top table
chairs - there's free plans on the web, and they're not rocket science
to make.. Then you'd have a place to sit after you et. OR, you could
just use a folding leg table, like a card table. If you wanted extra
room, you could uuse folding chairs too. OR, you could make a medieval
type trestle table, that knocks down, so you could have mor company, and
still get the table out of the way leter. Lots of simple possibilities,
just gotta think about it a bit. You could even use a couple of
sawhorses, folding type optional, and a old door, or chunk of plywood.
Or, a knock-down buy scout style picknick table - several sources for
free plans for that on the web too - they're all the same, so no use in
comparing plans. You could even hinge an old door or something on the
wall and prop it u p when you wanted to use it. Imagination, a terrible
thing to waste.



JOAT
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sandy wrote:
> My tiny 650 square foot cabin needs a small dining table. I think
> that a round drop leaf table (with the leaf dropped and pushed up
> against the wall) would be perfect but I've been unable to find one.
> I'm toying with the idea of buying a (used) round 42" diameter
> pedestal oak table that has a leaf and converting it to a drop leaf
> table. Would this be difficult for someone with only a smattering of
> woodworking ability to do??? Where could I purchase the dropleaf
> hardware??

First, what do you have to work with? If you have a router, the
dropleaf cutter sets are available from several vendors. It basically
is cut a straight edge and shape the two matching joints. You will have
to also add the support--how depends at least in part on the
construction of the table you start with. Probably the easiest is to
cut out a notch in the rail and add a swiveling support made from the
removed piece--I believe it was not very long ago there was a Fine
Woodworking article (couple of years or so???) that one of their editors
did on his technique.

Hinges are also available mail order from several places -- Woodworkers
Supply is one I recall. Never remember the exact name, but there's a
woodworkers hardware supply in MN that a google search will find that
has everything you could ever dream of (and more) in hardware...I use
them quite a lot but have to look them up every time...

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