When you start working in the world of furniture that folds and unfolds, it’s easy to get your frontal lobe into a blender. Even though you know that this contraption should work, you don’t actually believe it until you build it.
With this folding officer’s desk, I had six butt hinges all turning in different directions. So keeping inside and outside all straight as I screwed them in kept me flummoxed. And I kept wondering how much spacing I should leave between the folding aprons and the inside of the legs (my experiments with the mechanism told me the answer was “none”).
But still you worry.
So it was satisfying for the table base to snap open and shut perfectly on the first try.
Now I just need to build the folding desktop, which locks the base in the open position. I’d better get the jack plane sharpened up – the top is 24” wide, and I have only a 13” surface planer.
— Christopher Schwarz
Very nice. Did you have to recess all of the hinges or just the two in the middle of the sides? Thanks
(BTW, the FORP bench looks awesome as the backdrop)
Just the hinges in the middle.
That is fantastic, looking forward to seeing the folding desktop.
Awsome Chris, I need to build this for my daughters volleyball campaigns:)
I thought you were going “underground” for the next few months?
This is underground.
2 X 13 = 26? Oh, right.
Christopher,
The screw on your Roubo leg vise appears to be at, or just below, the mid-point of the leg. Does this placement seem to facilitate the operation of the vise without use of a parallel guide or St Pierre’s?
I’m still making friends with the vise and getting used to its set of characteristics. So my thoughts on it are not fully formed at this point. If I had to guess, my gut says that the position of the screw has more to do with increasing your clamping capacity than any other factor.
Thank you! I can’t wait to see more. You’ve been teasing us with campaign furniture for a while and I’m craving more.
I really like that base Chris. Looks flawless to me. Looking forward to seeing the rest of this project.
Brilliant! I’ve applied this folding design to chairs, thrones and cabinets.
If you put another set of folds in the other plane it keeps the front and back parallel as you open and close the assembly…
Eric Erb
eric.erb@bioclinica.com
mobile: 240-328-3373