Collapsible Bar Tables

[bajajoaquin]

I wasn't sure if this should go here or in welding/fab....

So I haven't been doing much smithing lately, but I have been busy after work, out in my little workshop. Between me, my brother, and my parents, it seems like we're having a need for some bar-height tables when we have guests over several times a year. My mom rents them, but my brother and I just tell people to hold on to their darn drinks.

Anyway, I thought I'd make some up that could be broken down easily and compactly, and transported in a car (so nobody has to come by and borrow my truck). I agonized over how to do it simply, but have finally come up with some ideas. In order to keep it cheap, I'm trying to use stock on hand. Looking around my shop, I found about 100' of 1X3 16-ga rectangular tubing, 6"X1/8" plate (6 or 8 pieces, each about 7' long that I bought as offcuts for a couple bucks each a few years ago), and some 1/8" X 1" strap (about 5' of it).

My solution was to create the center pillar of two pieces of 1X3 stitched together to make a 2X3. I cut out a square of the 6" wide material, and drilled in a square pattern. My legs are 1X3 cut to 12" long. I'm cutting 3" strips of the strap for clean end caps on the legs, and 4.25" strips that I'll drill to put bolts through, and attach to the central pillar. Leveling feet and attachment will be by 1/4-20 rivet nuts. I don't know how to describe it well, but I'm going to have a hook bracket at the bottom of each leg that will slot into the bottom of the pillar. That will locate and support the leg, so that I can attach it with a single bolt.

The top will be Baltic Birch plywood (13-ply) which comes in 5X5 sheets. Quartering that will give me a nice 30" X 30" cocktail table. I"ll put in 1/4-20 T-nuts so that you can screw up from the bottom (no pun intended). I'll make a standard set of wing-nut bolts, which will work in all the spots, so that it can be put together with standard hardware and no tools.

So far, I have one pillar and the mounting plate made, all the legs cut, and the end caps tacked on. Of course the only picture I took was of the jig I made to make all the brackets come out evenly. I'll try to take some more pics tonight when I get a few more things done.