Borrowing a page from the famous Russian aircraft designer Nicolai Nicolaievitch Polikarpov*, WallGoldfinger has developed a unique retractable support system for its lightweight Arbor reconfiguring tables. These are otherwise known as folding legs.

Our famous designer, Fay Anderson, mother of the “Anderlock” and numerous other engineering innovations, was charged with the responsibility of developing a new, compact folding leg for use in another major law firm renovation. This Washington DC project called for the use of 52 lightweight reconfigurable tables to be used for training, dining and conferencing and all had to be instantly portable and storable — no loose parts allowed.

The ideal solution was clearly folding legs, fitted with the most foolproof and compact pivot mechanism possible. Since we could find no entirely satisfactory commercially available device, we decided to develop one ourselves. Fay and her engineering department colleagues, working with one of our specialist metal fabricators, spent several weeks with mockups and prototypes, eventually arriving at the bracket design illustrated in the accompanying photographs.

Executed in brushed stainless steel, the essence of the leg pivot is simplicity, both in geometry and mechanics. The key to its success is the careful machining of the spring loaded locking pins and the tight tolerances of the pin anchor holes. This attention to detail ensures that the legs will be wobble-free in both the up and down positions.

The tables were designed by Davis Carter Scott and utilize sycamore veneer over WallGoldfinger’s exclusive lightweight composite core material. Each table is fitted with a drop-in Altinex unit for power and data connections.

Internally, we're still trying to decide what to call this device: “Anderfold” has its proponents (mostly those who report to Fay) while “The Polikarpov” has a few dedicated supporters (two at last count). If you out there in the real world have any good ideas, please let us know.