Building an expandable dining table - up to 4m long
We needed a new table, as the old one was getting to small. Especialy due to bad leg placement, it was not relay comortable when you expaned it. So of I go to desinging a table wich can get bigger and has a usable leg placement.
Table Requirements
The basic requirements for the new table was that the legs should not stay at the same location when extending. So the solution was to build the table in two identical halfs. Attaching the legs directly to these halfs. Now the next problem to solve was how to build the extending sliding mechanism. It needed to be payable and stable enough to span 4m.
Sliding Mechanism
As I do not have the capability to handle metal in my shop, I need to find a solution which used wood and of the shelf components. In the end the solution was to use fully extendable drawer slider and combine three of them together per side. Unfortunatly this is not stable enough to span the 4m which I wanted. So the final breakthough was to add a fith leg in the middle of the table.
Images of the build process
Securing the two halfs together
While building the table I did not desing a solution on how to hold the two halfs of the table together. Now after some time of using the table without this I finally managed to find a good solution on how to hold the two halfs together: ratchet strap.