The Wright “Patent” Non-Wobbly Table
Built by Geoff Wright in January 2008
In our retirement, Elizabeth and I often find ourselves in a cafe for a spot of afternoon tea. More often than not, we find to our dismay that our table wobbles, with the inevitable result that our meal is punctuated with mopping-up operations! Although this does not arise with three-legged tables, these tend to be rather unstable, and so even more unsatisfactory.
Dick Hogg and Neville Reed of the Henley Society used to demonstrate in model form that a four-legged table can be made absolutely firm by simply rotating it. They demonstrated that during one complete rotation there are two points at which the wobble disappears. However, I doubt that any cafe owner would approve of furniture moving activities. A circular table perhaps, but not a rectangular one.
So, from the contents of a post-1970s French № 9 set, here is my solution. The table, though visually normal, has legs suspended with a simple set of compensating levers.
This model was featured in the North East London Meccano Club’s May 2007 Newsletter & Review.