Plans for a Versailles or Refectory Table

[Keith or Denita Davis]

Do any of you fine woodworkers out there know were I can find a plan for a Versailles Table? It is sometimes referred to as a Dutch table or a Refectory Table.

It looks like a table with two tops and the leaves pull out from underneath the top. Woodsmith has a table similar to it in an earlier edition. The Australian Woodworker magazine says it is in one of their older issues but it is actually a basic trestle table. I want to make it before Thanksgiving so please respond soon if you have any ideas our recommendations.

Thanks Keith

"Jesus Is LORD"

[Andy Dingley]

Never heard any of those names (at least not an extendable refectory table)

Tage Frid's 3rd book "Furnituremaking" isn't the most useful book he wrote, but it does have an excellent section on the many variations of extending table mechanisms.

Charles Haywards "Period Furniture Designs" also has a drawing of a Tudor (?) extendable table that's probably very close to what you're after. This book has been out of print for years, but Hayward was a prolific author in his day (he was editor of a UK woodworking magazine in the '50s) and copies of his books are still easy to find S/H. Most of his books are interesting, but not essential reading. "Carving and Gilding" is worth having. "Period Furniture Designs" though is excelent and one of those rare books of measured drawings of historical pieces, written by a woodworker rather than an antiquarian.

[J T]

Fri, Nov 12, 2004, 8:30pm [e-mail] (Keith=A0or=A0Denita=A0Davis) one of which wants to know: It looks like a table with two tops and the leaves pull out from underneath the top.

Known as a draw table.

The Australian Woodworker magazine says it is in one of their older issues but it is actually a basic trestle table.

The earliest versions WERE trestle tables.

JOAT Any plan is bad which is incapable of modification.

- Publilius Syrus