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Old 04-22-2019, 12:14 PM   #1
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New table for our 5.0TA

We weren't able to take our table with us to Chilliwack, but had it all built and ready to install as soon as we got home. It's a 36" diameter round table with drop leaf sides, 24" wide with the sides down. Mary had a stencil custom designed to fit the top and spent a lot of hours painstakingly painting the pattern and then adding 3 coats of urethane on top to give it a nice durable finish. We actually took a cardboard mockup of this table to Chilliwack with us last fall and sat in the U-shaped dinette in the showroom to determine that the size would work well.

We will never use the dinette as a bunk so that is not a factor. We wanted a single post to maximize legroom, and it had to be a solid post that I could wrap with sisal for a cat scratcher...a Springfield with the telescoping sections would not work for that. I found a good post with a threaded mount to the base that is very sturdy....but not sturdy enough alone for this heavy table top, so I will be adding a brace from the post to the back dinette bench, and will reinforce the bench wall just like you would do for a Lagun mount. That means that the post will not be easily or quickly removable, but the table top can be lifted off the post and set aside if I need to do a bunch of work on something under one of the dinette benches.

We wanted the table to be all the way against the back wall so that it's easy to get in and out of the dinette, but also for it to slide forward to be closer to the kitchen when Mary has a big cooking project going. I built a slide mechanism using heavy duty drawer slides, solid as a rock when open. It was interesting having to work around and over the housing for the sliding support bars under the side leaves, but it all worked out. A thumbscrew tightens the table in any slide position, a must for travel with a front to back slide. We also have a Dicor slide on the way and I will take a look at that when I get it to see how it would work with this table top.

One rather humorous note - Mary chose the turquoise color for the stenciled design to coordinate with some curtains she was planning. After spending a week in the trailer she is close to deciding against those curtains, and the turquoise will not work so she may decide to get another identical table top and just go with a natural wood finish and no painted design....we may have a nice stenciled table top available if anyone local is interested
Attached Thumbnails
Table 1.jpg   Table 2.jpg   Table 3.jpg   Table 4.jpg   Table 5.jpg  

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Old 04-22-2019, 12:22 PM   #2
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Very nice. I really like the table. BUT you'd better start charging your cats rent for all the nice things you're doing inside the trailer for their comfort.
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Old 04-22-2019, 12:33 PM   #3
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A lot of good work in that project.
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Old 04-22-2019, 01:01 PM   #4
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I had my springfield installed so the edge of the table is even with the rise in the floor for just that reason, space to spread out while cooking without tripping or stumbling. Counter space is even more at a premium in the 17. I'm hoping to get one of the second order phase four way sliders.

Oh, man, I'd hate to see all that beautiful work go to waste. Maybe some square pillows with the fabric she had intended to coordinate with the green? Use the fabric to cover the valances?
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Old 04-22-2019, 01:54 PM   #5
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Can never have too many table tops, I've got 3 so far and looking for the right woods for a 4th.
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Old 04-22-2019, 01:59 PM   #6
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Can never have too many table tops, I've got 3 so far and looking for the right woods for a 4th.
Well, we are thinking that 3 will be our limit....but then we said that about cats once and the universe almost immediately sent another cat to our door.
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Old 04-22-2019, 02:53 PM   #7
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Very nice!
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Old 04-22-2019, 04:44 PM   #8
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A lot of good work in that project.
It was definitely a team effort - Mary has a terrific sense of style and color, and I am a colorblind carpenter
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Old 04-22-2019, 08:27 PM   #9
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Beautiful table. Doesn’t the drop leaf prevent you from being able to sit with it in that configuration because you lose your knee space? Or is only used like that when you would be lounging with feet up on the benches?
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Old 04-22-2019, 09:32 PM   #10
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Beautiful table. Doesn’t the drop leaf prevent you from being able to sit with it in that configuration because you lose your knee space? Or is only used like that when you would be lounging with feet up on the benches?
The drop leaf falls just above our legs when we are sitting there - doesn't show that well in the photo but we find that there is enough room that we don't hit it.
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Old 04-23-2019, 07:18 AM   #11
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The drop leaf falls just above our legs when we are sitting there - doesn't show that well in the photo but we find that there is enough room that we don't hit it.
Because of the added thickness of the slide mechanism and the housing for the bars that slide out to support the drop leaves, the table sits a bit higher and that probably makes the difference with the leaves not hitting our legs when folded down. The height of the table seems comfortable - doesn't feel too high.
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Old 04-23-2019, 09:05 AM   #12
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Here's a better view showing the side leaves down, just enough room for us to sit without them hitting our legs.
Attached Thumbnails
Table 6.jpg  
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Old 04-30-2019, 04:00 PM   #13
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When I ordered this pedestal I had hoped that it would be strong enough to stand on its own. However, it has a 3/4" threaded rod on the bottom of the post that screws into the base, and while it makes for a solid mount I am certain it does not have the strength to handle the leverage of our very heavy table top pushing forward during a hard braking stop. Just the drawer slide mechanism, with large 100 lb. rated drawer slides, weighs about as much as the standard ETI table. I haven't weighed our completed table assembly with the tabletop, slide mount and hardware but it is HEAVY.

So I added a couple of L brackets attached to the back dinette bench, fastening them to the post with a bolt through the middle. This was about as unobtrusive as I could make a brace, it doesn't get in the way of our legs at all. One thing that was appealing about this post is that the base attached to the floor is flat and only about 1/2" thick so it doesn't get in our way like the cone shaped standard post base would. Although the brackets don't really show unless you're sitting there looking at them, I intend to get some paint like ETI uses to paint the cabinet wall edges and the wood pieces on the dinette side bench walls that support the table when used as a bed base, and will paint the metal brackets to match so they are even less noticeable.

I added plywood and heavy metal brackets inside the back bench to brace that wall just like others have done for Lagun mounts. Now, even with this really heavy table, it is solid as a rock. A Lagun mount works fine just mounted to the dinette bench wall when properly reinforced - in our case the pedestal is carrying all the vertical weight of the tabletop and the bracket on the bench wall serves only to provide horizontal stability so I am confident this will ride out any bouncy road or sudden maneuvers intact. The trade off, of course, is that the post is not easily removed now - but we don't expect to do that anyway. And for any extensive work I need to do under the back bench, I can lift the tabletop off the socket on the top of the post and lay it on the bed temporarily and work around the post. The socket on the top of the post is similar to the standard ETI post socket except that this post appears to be machined to a higher tolerance and the socket is a bit deeper as well, so it has no wobble at all.
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Table 7.jpg   Table 8.jpg  
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