Thread: Levelling tables

Originally Posted by mark david

This is why milking stools have 3 legs, they sit perfectly flat and level on anysurface.
The old pub "cricket" tables had 3 legs to go on the uneven flagstone floors.

I cant remember the last time I went out for a meal or a drink and didnt sit at a table that wobbled in every direction, I guess we havent learnt much in 200 years.

Anything with 4 or more legs will not, It doesn't matter how accurately you make a piece of furniture you will rarely encounter a floor perfect enough to accomodate it without somemdegree of wobble.

The simplest solution is a screw in levelling foot that can be adjusted when the table is put in location.

Or live in a carpeted house...

Three legged stools are one thing, but three legged everything else in every instance would be a bit dreary. I've leveled the legs of my (store bought dining table and chairs... and then put a hard felt pad under each leg. the pads have enough "give" to adjust for minor changes in floor level - enough to stop any wobble, anyway. Having said that my floors are pretty good all over.

But I share your frustration with cheap four legged Cafe tables on hard tiled surfaces that don't have leg height adjusters... I always end up using my napkin...

Anyway I agree with Rob. You can't allow for uneven surfaces... so the only thing you can do is make the legs level and let "the client" deal with the problems that the uneven surface creates...

Originally Posted by auscab

They're not really used that way Jorge . Like in my picture of a pair of twisted Oregan boards I have been working on today , A stick is placed at each end on the board , you then sight over the first one to the far one and you can see how much the board wind's / twist's .

For these boards I then used an electric plane , just three inches in from each end to remove timber to fix the wind until the sticks showed them to be in the same plane as each other, once that is right I planned the rest of the board true to match the two ends.
Its a two board table top 2 x 2500 x 450 x 50 . their to big for my buzzer and being recycled they are to nasty for my 500mm thickneser , there is concrete and nails in them.

If it were a chair or table , the upturned piece sits upside down and the sticks get placed on the leg ends. you sight them up and decide where you are going to cut timber off to make the sticks sit level with each other.
so you may be cutting 3mm off two legs to get it right if the chair had a 6mm wobble when upright, roughly.

Rob

Got it the stick is to see how much something is winding, rather than to wind something up...

Still reckon my way would work though Rob...

Thanks for persevering with me

Jorge

Sometimes those felt floor protectors will take up a bit of slack.
I have a old cast iron compositors table about one metre square which is great for small jobs but just trust my luck that all my cuts and joints are square,I keep checking them as I go.

Thanks for all the responses, everyone. My most replied to post yet.

Ok, now with all of that said, what is the go on selling furniture which may or may not require leveling? In your experience (anyone), how big of a deal is it if you get a piece of furniture to a buyer's house and it wobbles? Is this a deal breaker for some people or is the average person willing to accept that the world is not flat?

Thanks again in advance,
Luke

Most tables flex , the longer the more likely it will flex . Chairs or things with four legs around that size wobble . All you have to do for the client is tell them they are finished level and move it around their floor to show them different spots give different results . I find I'm not haveing to prove this in their house but at my workshop. I wouldn't get involved in trying to sell furniture at a persons house unless I really had to .

The major stress out is with long cabinet work that sits on a floor that's out . they are mostly all out to some degree . If you build a 3.6 M long cabinet with 16 hinged doors and the floor is two mm lower at one corner, then the cabinet does a twist and all the doors jam.
Sometimes over 3.6 meters it could be out 10 or 15 mm. This is an every day hurdle for the cabinet maker or shop fitter ,even with two door cabinets 1.2 wide. It has a simple solution. but if you didn't plan for it and some how you snookered yourself with a design that couldn't be adjusted , if it was your first such delivery , it would be stressful . They don't pay if the doors jam.

Rob