damage to folding table

[john d hamilton]

we have this type of folding table, please see picture on tinypic website

folding edges are very thin and with a very small clearance. would this be able to cope with being stored in a tin garden shed (with no heating) in north london u.k. over the winter? Or would it likely warp and distort? Thanks for any advice.

[john d hamilton]

for some reason the link is not working directly, so please *copy and paste* into web browser.

[J. Clarke]

The link works fine for me. If the shed is _dry_ I wouldn't expect any problems. Stored in the shed it likely sees less moisture change than stored in a heated house, but if it's getting wet all bets are off.

[john d hamilton]

John thanks. the roof does not leak, but the concrete floor gets wet. obviously i would stand the table on bricks off the wet floor, but i guess the humidity is going sky high. does that count as wet, in this instance?

[J. Clarke]

Sort of. How does the water get on the floor--does it seep up from undereath or is it coming in from somewhere else? If it's seeping throught the floor it shouldn't be a problem, but if it's coming in from somewhere else you need to find and fix the leak.

[SteveBell]

I would be concerned about storing any kind of furniture in a building that damp. If the floor is wet enough to notice, then the water could easily wick up through whatever you use to raise your furniture up. You might get by with plastic spacers, but I'd still worry about the humidity in the air.

That looks like a nice drop-leaf table. It probably has some veneer on it, and I've seen a lot of veneer delaminate in moist environments.

[aemeijers]

Link worked fine. That looks to be a nice piece of wood there, from what I can see in the picture. No way would I store that in a garden shed if there was any way to avoid it. Even if roof is solid and it is up on bricks, the humidity/temp swings will play havoc on the wood and joinery. No relatives you can park it with, that would actually give it back when you are in a position to use it?

I have, in the past, actually sold or given away some decent pieces to a good home, just because I didn't have a good place to keep them, and respected the craftsmanship too much to put it at risk. Antique or not-antique, or resale value, didn't enter in to it. I just can't bear to see good wood in harm's way.

-- aem sends...

[PCPaul]

I've just refinished a similar table - got it from Freecycle but it was too big for the intended place, and covered in watermarks. It was a really nice table though.

So I sanded it right back, restained and poly'd it and gave it away again.

Amazing how all the worries about messing it up when refinishing go away when it didn't cost anything and you're either going to give it away or dump it afterwards...