Adjustable height tables

This thread actually starts in my head quite a while ago, when I rabbitholed into looking up how to make adjustable height tables easily.
I'll add some of my notes on other ways to make tables like this in a second post.
But they have been on my mind for quite a while, then the other day I saw this in a pile of stuff for sale marked 12.95 and then marked half off. So I snagged it for 6.50   :D  Needs the top nails replaced and a clean and paint job, but functions well!

It stands up for storage:

What I first saw, folded up and stands for storage

Has a half circle cut out so it can be carried:

Half circle cut out is how you carry it

As your hand grabs the dowels to carry it, the cut out gives your fingers room:

See? When your hand grabs the dowels, circle cut out makes it so you can do so

There are notched rails under the lower shelf that the dowel fits into to change the height:

Spreading it open you can see the notched rails the dowels fit into

And this is what it looks like flipped up being a table, lowest setting:

Flipped upright from the position in the picture above

It extends upward by changing which notches the dowel is in, highest setting:

Fully extended upward

The top shelf is only attached at one end, it pivots on the dowel it was threaded onto:

The top pivots on the the dowel

As the table changes height the top stays level, it moves to stay sitting on the top of the X parts that lift it:

As the table is moved to different heights the loose end of the top stays level

The railing notches give the option of 4 heights: 40 inches, 36 inches, 30 inches, 21 inches.
It has a small footprint in storage, and a nice range of heights. I think I'd make a secondary top that fits over the top nicely that comes off for storage and increases the table top size.
I'd cut the hand carry notch as a shallow arc rather than a half circle.

Really a nicely done design. Was worth it to me for the pattern if nothing else.

The notes I took when I was rabbitholing on these tables:

The allthread center lifts this table up and down


This one folds inward to the center then the top folds down


This table has the top split and fold down the ends, and drawers


So my weird little brain is thinking things like scissor type tables with folding over tops, and drawers and even making the bases fold  (probably outward instead of inward as in that second picture if you are using allthread to move it) so it stores flat with it's top folded over and it's drawers facing upward. (You would have to make them fit well so they don't spill.)


With my health issues, the height of a working surface I need changes due to what I'm sitting or standing on, and where on the item I'm working. I have wanted work tables that I can adjust and things that fold up, move, change height, just fascinate me.

Another thread I started on things that change My woodworking skills will never be this good

I'm fascinated....

Pearl Sutton wrote: The railing notches give the option of 4 heights: 40 inches, 36 inches, 30 inches, 21 inches.

Just to state the obvious, the higher you go, the tippier the table gets.

There are likely design additions that could help with that - at a minimum a couple of sandbags over the cross bars at the bottom.

I totally agree with the need for adjustable height tables. Most kitchen counters are about 36" tall, but kitchen tables, tend to be only 30" tall. I am about 5'3", and rolling pastry is significantly more comfortable on the kitchen table, than on the counter.

A friend showed me a picture once where an old hospital bed had been turned into a wonderfully large adjustable table. Unfortunately, I don't have an enormously large shop to put it in!

A friend showed me a picture once where an old hospital bed had been turned into a wonderfully large adjustable table. Unfortunately, I don't have an enormously large shop to put it in!

And that is exactly why I want things that fold.
:D