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Escape 21C Table Mod Rev 2
Last summer I detailed a mod I made to the table in our 21C. I installed a smaller table made out of quartersawn white oak that used a linear bearing mount to allow side to side movement to make egress better. It looked great and worked pretty well, but I can never leave well enough alone.
The biggest issue was the weight, it just was a pain to move the table up and down in height. I took it apart and put the whole assembly on a scale and it weighed 42 lbs. The factory table and mount weighed 26 lbs. My sturdy linear bearing mount with its ¾ inch Baltic birch mounting plate was around 18 lbs. My hand-crafted white oak table top was 24 lbs.
I did some googling and head scratching and decided on a two-prong redo. The first was to put the table top on a diet. I stripped the finish off of both sides and then took it to the wood shop where I ripped it in half, planed the two halves down from three quarter inch thick to one half inch thick, jointed the ripped edges, glued it back together and refinished it with a wax/oil finish from Germany.
The woodworking part was straightforward, but the mount required more thought. I decided to use aluminum extrusions to mount to the Springfield Marine pedestal. As far as movement goes I purchased some V wheeled gantry plates. The gantry plates and the black extrusions that mount to the table bottom are the metric Series 20 V slot extrusion system. The silver extrusions are the more common English units T slot extrusions.
Even though I used quarter sawn hardwood, I’m still a little concerned with wood seasonal movement in the tabletop so I machine a series of four slots in the black channel for the mounting screws to go through. I needed a little clearance to allow free movement of the gantry plate so I put a stout washer under each slot. I think this also should help with taming the effect of wood expansion as well.
To keep this assembly from going pear shaped a I tapped a ¼-20 threaded hole in both ends of each extrusion channel that I plugged with a ¼-20 machine screw. Where it made sense, I used blue thread locker to minimize vibration loosening.
The locking mechanism is a threaded rod that pinches a wooden brake shoe against a strip of anti-slip tape.
The new unit weighs 24 lbs. and can be moved side to side very easily. By loosening the T bolts that hold the silver channel to the Springfield unit it also can be moved front to back as well.
Needless to say, the proof is in the pudding and until I have some trips under my belt, I’m going to travel with the old factory stock table and mount stashed in my Tundra just in case we have some issues. If it survives our Feb trip down to the Mexican border, I will call that a success and leave the factory stock table at home.
The 1st picture shows the table ready for install onto the Springfield. It’s upside down in this picture so you can see the details. The 2nd shot shows the expansion slot, a wood screw and the washer stand off to deal with wood seasonal movement. The third shot shows the brake to keep the table from moving around while seated.
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Linear Mode
