Yesterday, Trevor gave us a new meaning to the phrase working on a table ... Here he is, literally, working ON THE TABLE ! And, theres plenty of room if more of us wanted to get up there and work on it with him. ... And, this is less than half of it ... 3/7ths of it to be exact. Anychoice, its coming along. Today Jim set up a temporary frame for the whole table in my garage and it looks like I will
just be able to close the overhead door once the top is all in place. We feel we have to have the top with the center sections and granite templates all together at least once before we call the gentleman who is going to pick up the templates and cut the granite. Cant be too careful on this one, and it wont fit in the shop. Click the pictures to enlarge them ... Plenty more on this project later ... Its a big one ...
The far end ... The first four sections not shown here have already been fitted and edged. Here, we are cutting the templates and the preparing the center sections for veneer ..
With the end section removed and the center section of the table now in its place ...
The temporary base in my garage with the steel tubing in place and the end caps welded on. Next, as each section is finished and the steel is primed, well put everything in place and bolt the table sections to the steel and they will be finished like that.
OK, Ive done this enough without documenting it ... We first figured this out in 1998 by more or less copying a clients table that had a mechanism that worked pretty well ... Weve built tables with it probably 4 or 5 times since then, but never carefully documented the process with notes and drawings ... Im going to give it a whirl here ... Click the pictures to enlarge them and I hope you can figure it out .... Be sure to make a small mockup in ply or mdf to try it all out before you attempt it on your real table ... Works OK with four legs or a trestle ... We alchoices put some felt on the bottom of the table top where the leaf closes ... strips or larger pieces .. I put a very short video of the mechanism in operation on you tube here
concept sketch
cad drawing
cad drawing of the pull out supports .. Itll all make sense once you mock it up ... 
The finished table
Parts
Close up of the steel apron detail
One of the four legged versions in recycled chestnut
On site
My original coffee table drawing from 1998
