Thread: Expanding Table rigidity

I have made a few with the same design princaple. Even though the Lee Valley ones have metal toothed runners they will sag in 10 plus years just like the old time antique ones. Here is a run down on the wooden ones I make. They are the old traditional method. Look here

You should have no trouble with the Lee Valley ones.

but remember this, any thing that can move, will move when you least expect it!

Steve, the Lee Valley ones will be fantastic, but the question of rigidity is valad in 10 or so years. Doesn`t seem a big deal now, it it will then.

I did a large-ish Walnut table using the Lee Valley mechanism 20-something years ago (from memory, it is about 1200 by something approaching 3,000 at full extension). Instead of using a split apron supported by the slides as is intended, I used a fixed apron. Each half of the top was fixed to the sliders, but the weight of the top was borne by the long aprons, not the runner mechanism, and the top attached to the base via cleats, which engaged with a cleat on the inside of the long aprons. The cleats on the moving pieces were a bit of a nuisance because they had to have slots in the end aprons to pass through when the table was opened (hard to explain without pics, but I can't show any 'cos the table now lives with the ex-, but I got part of the idea from a design in one of Tage Frid's books or articles).

Anyway, it all worked well enough - the expanding mechanism wasn't really necessary in the end, but it helped align the moving halves & smoothed the operation of adding leaves or closing up. Nothing to sag, and the whole thing was quite rigid, though I did get a bit ambitious about the length of the top, and gave it a bit too much overhang at full extension. The ends are a teeny bit bouncy if a large person leaned their full weight on them. But nothing like the old tables that use a similar type of slide with a split apron.....

As LB says, most things that move end up sagging - my body gives ample proof of that theory......
Cheers,