Materials:
- plywood 10-15 mm;
- timber 40x40 mm;
- rail 40x30 mm;
- rail 20x40 mm;
- self-tapping screws;
- piano loop;
- furniture mounting angles – 4 pcs.;
- furniture bolts with nuts and washers – 8 sets;
- card loops – 2 pcs.;
- bicycle lock;
- steel plates;
- door knob.
Making a folding table
To make the table, 2 pieces of plywood 760x760 mm are used. They can be obtained by dissolving a regular sheet of 1525x1525 mm into 4 parts. Along the perimeter, the halves of the tabletops are reinforced with 30x40 mm bars.
They are screwed onto self-tapping screws and additionally mounted with wood glue. After assembly, it is necessary to grind the chamfers, making them less sharp.Next, the halves of the tabletop are connected with a piano hinge.
4 legs for the table are cut from 40x40 mm timber. In length they should lie between the slats along the perimeter of the plywood. The legs need to be placed in place and sanded so that they are flush with the bars on the back of the tabletop.
On one side, the ends of the legs are rounded and holes are made in them for bolts. Opposite them, reinforcing slats are also drilled under the tabletop. To fasten it, you need to insert a furniture bolt into the hole in a piece of plywood, then thread it through the leg, put a piece of 20x40 mm strip with a hole, a washer, a furniture mounting angle and secure everything with a wing nut. In this case, the strip cut and the corner are fixed to the plywood with glue and self-tapping screws.
Having finished with the legs, you should make a folding mechanism to strengthen them. To do this, you first need to strengthen the adjacent legs with a crossbar made of 30x40 mm bars. Then a U-shaped folding stop made of a 20x40 mm rail is installed on them. It is fixed on furniture bolts. In order for it to support the legs, you need to make supports for it from scraps of timber screwed to the back of the tabletop.
Then you need to remove the play between the legs and the slats on the tabletop, into which they rest. To do this, spacers made of steel plates of suitable thickness are screwed onto them. Also, card loops are installed on the side of the unfolded tabletop.
To lock the table, an anti-theft bicycle lock is cut into it. It will need to be mounted with epoxy glue. A carrying handle is also screwed near the lock.
The resulting table, when unfolded, has a size of 760x1520 mm and a height of 705 mm, which is enough to comfortably accommodate 4 people or a cramped 6 people. Its weight when using light pine bars will be 19-20 kg.This is quite a bit considering the stability and size of the tabletop, but of course, provided that the table is transported by car.
