Thread: Maximum expansion

For a long time I wanted to build a dining table. I fantasised about different shapes and mechanisms, doubted whether I had the skill, etc. etc. A couple of years ago I felt ready to start. Was naturally constrained by the available space, wanted something small enough not to be in the way but also as big as possible for family occasions.

Lots of measuring and calculating persuaded me that it would just be possible to fit a 2.5 m table into our dining area without the person on the end falling down the two steps into the lounge area. So the challenge became to make the shortest table that would expand that far. After more research and some time at the drawing board a pair of 1200mm heavy duty (90 kg) telescoping drawer slides seemed like the practical solution. The original plan was to finish it in time for Christmas 2019 but my nephew and his wife wanted to host everyone that year so the pressure was off me and I didn't finally finish it until last month. And as always I didn't take enough photos during construction.

Half of one leg being drilled with home-made dowelling jig
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Material for the top was 30mm glulam jarrah benchtop from Austim in Perth.
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Thanks to the delay in construction, the rough-cut pieces for the top stood in a cool dry corner of the house for nearly a year before I got round to finishing them. There was a little bowing and warping, so I built a router sled and bought a 50 mm cutter to flatten them. After flattening and sanding they ended up about 26mm thick.

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The Hitachi router I inherited from my father turns too fast for the 50 mm cutter, so I built a speed controller from an Altronics kit (not visible in pic). Wedges hold the panel in place on the sled base.

Here's the finished product. Minimum size is 1360x826, perfect for four people. This configuration uses three of the five leaves. The two end leaves lift off and are interchangeable. The narrow central leaf has an inset piece of African mninga, left over from when my father was building a boat in Tanzania fifty years ago.

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The wide-angle perspective in the shot above makes the legs look fatter than they are; in fact they are 60x60 at the bottom. The "L" at the bottom of the leg is filled with a piece of European beech (laminated up from an offcut of finger-jointed panel I used to make an admiral's bed), and the actual foot is slippery plastic with bevelled edges so it slides easily on the floor.

Here's the inside.
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The legs are glued to the end-pieces and rails; the bolts and dowels are there for reinforcement. You can see that there are two pairs of rails with the metal slides between them, plus an outermost third pair of "modesty" rails. As well as the legs, the rest of the framework is glued up where possible, leaving some joints held only by lots of woodscrews and a few bolts so that it's possible if necessary to dismantle it enough to remove and replace the slides. (The woodscrews are No 10 x 38mm, from a box I bought at a closing down sale in the 1980s, confident that sooner or later they'd come in handy.)expan

The green locating strips on the rails match with slots in the end leaves. At the other end, of course, the green strips are on the inner rails, so there are two sets of slots in each end leaf. I turned up the brass locating pins and sockets for the other leaves on the lathe. They are pressed into holes in timber, but the metal parts have a sloppy fit so it's easy to align them. You can see the two spare leaves in their storage space under the table.
To adjust the length, you simply pull the two ends apart enough to disengage the locating pins (that's the position shown in the pic: you can see there's space between the rails and the end-piece. Then you can lift off any or all of the leaves. Then pull it apart further, insert the desired combination of leaves and push back together. The options are:
2 end leaves (540) plus central leaf (280): 1360 - 4-6 people

2 end leaves plus one "spare" leaf (570) 1650 - 6-8 people

2 end leaves plus both spare leaves: 2220 - 8-10 people

All leaves: 2500 - 10-12 people.
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It looks a bit spindly at full stretch, but should be strong enough (no one in the family dances on tabletops).
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