Keeping Swing-up Tables from Falling Down!

[coyotearms]

We usually eat on two separate swing-up Corian tables mounted to each side of a cabinet located on the passenger side near the side door. One of these is shown in both the down and up position.



They were installed by SMB with a crude means to engage them consisting of a big support hinge that is manually swung up to bear against a block clued onto the underside. If you are unfortunate enough to accidentally lift the table even a smidgen when getting up or reaching for something, the hinge swings down, the table drops down instantaneously and everything on it falls/spills onto your lap or the floor, once happening with my computer!

For some reason it took us a long time to figure out how to fix this problem. After an exhausting amount of time looking for different commercial hardware with which to remount the tables, and coming up with a number of things we could fabricate, but would not fit behind the tables when they were in the down position, we finally came up with a simple solution we would like to pass on.

We basically did it by fastening bungee cord on the underside of the table that could be stretched to locate it under the supporting hinge to keep it in contact with the table if it is accidentally lifted. To lower a table we just stretch the bungee enough to put it back in its resting place. The details are in the pictures below that show the bungee in its resting position and how it is used to keep the supporting hinge from falling. It turns out it is a no-no to drill a hole and screw in fasteners directly into Corian http://(<a href="http://www2.dupont....Corian.pdf</a>), which does not seem to bother SMB, but we followed one of the recommended methods of using silicone caulk to glue wooded blocks to the Corian, and then fastened eyelet screws into the wood. Look closely and you see a second hole drilled about half an inch away from the eyelets if it would be necessary to move the eyelets to a better position to do the job. The first photo above at the top of this post shows that in the down position the wooden blocks allow the table to be stored as it did before the modification.

[Jeffrey]

Long Live the HomeBrew fix! Not elegant, but I hope it works for you.

[coyotearms]

Ouch ! "Not elegant" is the way SMB did flip-up tables in the first place, yeah? Now I will admit, I was able to scrounge around the house and garage for wood blocks, silicone caulk and bungee cord, but, hey, I practiced what I always do with needed SMB mods or even when unscrewing anything SMB installed---went out and splurged on stainless steel hardware---isn't that sort of elegant ?