Space Saving Track

For most of us when it comes to space I'm pretty sure it is considered a premium around the house. Therefore, I wanted to build a track that would store easily under a bed or against the wall when not is use.

The most logical answer was a layout table that was fairly light with folding legs. The chances of attaching those metal folding legs directly to a hollow core door and not pulling out are pretty much slim to none. I had to come up with a design that would solve this problem. After some consideration, I decided to inlay four 2 x 4 studs into the door.

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The reason that I would inlay them into the door is because I wanted the table to be as thin as possible when the legs were folded up. To inlay the 2 x 4 studs I had to cut the door to allow me to inlay the cross members.

The 2 x 4 cross members were cut with a 1/4 inch lip on the sides (to give the inlays a nice finished look) and the lip on the ends were larger to cover the door frame. This is where the cross members were attached to the door. With the cross members in place I am able to attach the folding legs to a solid piece of wood.

Since I will be the only one moving this thing around, I also cut and routed some hand holds in the retaining rails for ease of movement.

In addition I attached some "L" brackets on the inside of the rails to reinforce the stability of the retaining rails.

I used 1 x 6 pine boards for the retaining rails of the table. I also used a router to cut a slot the thickness of the door and to round the edges and outside corners of the table. You do not have to do this if you do not have the tools. You could just attach the rails and either use a block sander or power sander to round the edges.

After finishing the retaining rails I decided that I did not want to paint the door... so I glued some laminate to the door. Some of you might know the laminate as "Formica". No fuss no muss and it makes a nice finish.