Interesting way to build an expanding table.

[Roy Smith]

Check out the videos here

I'm sure the magic is all in the mechanism, not the woodworking itself, but it's still kind of neat. Considering it's designed for mega-yachts, I'm sure it comes with a pricetag most of us would find hard to swallow.

[Juvenal]

[...]

One of the still pics of the Brazillian table shows some of the mechanism, but it would sure be nice to be able to inspect one of these in person to see exactly how it works.

[Flex Flint]

From the link that Mr. Smith gave: "PATENT GRANTED. DESIGN RIGHT." I'm quite sure you're not *meant* to know how it works.

Good thing I checked to see whether this had been posted, I came in here to link to that exact same page.

Here are some more links on Youtube:

amazing. They must have spent hours design the mechanics inside.

[John L. Poole]

Flex Flint wrote: [snip]

[snip]

If it is patented, then the design is suppose to be disclosed. That's the whole point of the patent system: you disclose to the government/public your invention and how to create it so others can create it after the patent expires and the government gives you a monopoly on it for a duration of years. If a patent was granted recently, then you may be able to access the patent via the Internet and learn about the inner workings.

[Flex Flint]

John L. Poole wrote: [...] > If a patent was granted

Valid points, valid points; I posted too eagerly. Perhaps I'll try and find one or two things if the day permits.

Note: there's two treads reporting these tables, see subject "Amazing expanding circular table". Link:

walking table is nice too by the way ;).

[J. Clarke]

The "art" of patent writing is to write in such a manner that your idea is protected but nobody else can figure out how to replicate it from the patent. Or so they taught us at Georgia Tech many years ago.

[Flex Flint]

Hah! Got it! Or at least I think so, and it gets better by the minute!

Found this link first [1], where it is stated:

*** In another and quite famous solution, Robert Jupe developed around 1835 a radial table containing sections that diverge from a common center to allow for insertion of expansion leaves. ***

From there worked may way to USPTO.gov[2]. From this latest page (the actual patent, or at least what I think it is):

*** In 1835, Robert Jupe was granted British Patent No. 6788 for an expanding table. ***

Here's another page selling similar designs:

's some UHMWP and other exotic stuff in there, worth a look (I'm drooling as we speak, sorry). To view the images on the USPTO-site you'll need a TIFF-viewer (plugin), but I just installed it in IE7, works like a charm. Go to the "Images" page, click the "Help" link top right for instructions. Haven't tried it in Firefox though. Enjoy!

[Flex Flint]

[Firefox]

Update: works equally smooth, except after a few modifications (at least in my case):

-the program installed under my Thunderbird plugins-folder

-cut and paste it to your firefox plugins-folder instead

-reboot (might be possible that this isn't even necessary)

-saving files works as well, but only for a certain amount of downloads in the case of the freeware version.

-TIff-files can be viewed and adapted with the standard Windows-viewer.

-There are also rectangular tables in the patent

-Allow me to drool on.

[John L. Poole]

Google is now into serving up patents -- what a wonderful project.

Here's the jupe table reference, and there is a patent as recent as January 4, 2000, that references the original patent.

See:

[Flex Flint]

Huge fan of Google here, didn't even know they had this. Will the fun ever end? :)

Amazing indeed, and it doesn't even require you to fiddle around with software. Thanks much for this link!