MayDay! Help with table slides please!

[Enrique Bava]

Hello List:
I have been working on this Jatoba dining-room table for the longest time, close to 5 months now. This is my current and present challenge: making the sliding mechanism stiff. The table is 5 feet long closed; extending to 9 feet with two butterfly leaves. To counter the weight of the table, I decided to use ball bearing drawer slides, 2 36" full-extension, rated 175lb, mounted on three ash beams. The sliding is smooth enough, but fully extended it is extremely flimsy, more like a boat.
Any suggestion is welcomed, including replacing the bearing slides with old fashioned wood slides, or even -gasp!- metal slides. I need the stiffness.
Thank you much in advance.

[Matt Schroeder]

I am just finishing a split pedestal 47" round table that expands with three removable leaves to 83". I think I purchased the slides from Woodworker's Hardware, the M3 item number, and am very happy. No slop, easy to open/close, easy to install. My only caveat is since they are so new they haven't gone through a full summer/winter humidity cycle yet to confirm the operation will remain loose all year, but so far they are great.

Osborn Wood Products seem to have a larger selection, up to a size that would accommodate your table (perhaps part number 9057 or 9052 depending on the base type), and their appearance seems very similar to what I have (they may be the manufacturer of the ones I have).

Matt

[Rod Sheridan]

The slides are "stiff" in the vertical plane only.

They have no resistance to sideways bending, they're not meant to be table slides.

I suggest you purchase slides meant for a table............Rod.

[Phil Barrett]

This is a very interesting problem. I can't imagine drawer slides to be effective as they aren't that tight.

I've never built one but, looking at a table I've had for at least 25 years, I see several things. This table expands with 2 extra leaves to about 12 ft and seats 10 easily, 12 in a pinch. It is very solid at its fullest extent. Built by Harden, a reasonably well know NC furniture maker.

My table has 2 sets of 4 sliding beams (not sure that's the correct term). They used dove tails (er, bow ties?) for the connectors. The beams are each 1"x2.5" and the middle 2 appear to have a length that is at least 1.5X the width of the add-in leaves. The second picture shows the dovetail sliders. It looks like the two outer beams have the male dovetail (pin seems the wrong term). I'm not sure how the two middle beams connect - loose bowtie pin or half and half. I could see a design where the two middle ones were half male and half female. Nails (pins?) are used to stop the slides. The slides are fairly tight requiring 2 people to pull the table apart. Note the presence of plentiful beeswax. [Edit: looking closer, the beams are all dove tailed on either side and there are short (2-3") bow tie pins glued in to several places on the appropriate side. The pins appear to be something like ash.]
IMG_20140916_092827_950.jpgIMG_20140916_095404_014.jpgIMG_20140916_095446_645.jpg

Good luck and keep us posted on your solution.

[Sam Murdoch]

Heres is one brand that I have used and can recommend http://www.osbornewood.com/table-slides.cfm

and another brand that I have not used but has been recommended here in The Creek - http://www.moinhardware.com/page15/p...detail7_page15

You can tell that I think you should swap out. Lots of work invested to settle now for slides that are not satisfactory. Good on you for trying though.

[Enrique Bava]

Thank you very much for all the replies and advice. I reversed one of the sliding guides on each side, so the center beam (of three) is supported half way from each end; that seemed to help; I also installed 4 L-shaped blocks to curtail vertical movement of the moving slides; this helped too, but it still is not what I hope.
I will certainly look at the commercially available slides. I am afraid that I will have to make my own mega-slide beams, though. This is one special design in which the legs move out (not pedestal) but the added leaves are all on one side. The legs that slide to accommodate the leaves are connected to the sliding beams with screws. This would rule out most slides that are to be fastened to the underside of the tabletops in both ends. I will post pics.
Again, thank you all for the replies.