Making a Reading Table – Redux

The Book Stop

Further to the removable book stop dilemma which I wrote of in Making a Reading Table – Part One and Making a Reading Table – Part Seven, I have now lived with the reading table for about six months and, when not in use, the whereabouts of the book stop is a constant worry to me and I can’t be having that!

At the time, I entertained a couple of ideas for safely storing the book stop, but all were dismissed as I had no historic evidence to hand of their implementation. That changed recently however when I discovered a mid-eighteenth-century reading table which incorporated one of the previously contemplated solutions.

When not in use, the book stop is stowed on the table’s front rail by pushing its brass pins into three identical brass sockets to those used for securing it on the tabletop. Huzzah!

Note the three brass sockets along the bottom of the front rail.

The book stop stowed on the front rail.

I simply installed three more of the brass sockets into the front rail of my reading table and the conundrum is finally put to rest.

My book stop similarly safely stowed away.

Castors

Table mobility was also discussed in Making a Reading Table – Part One, but I determined not to mount mine on castors. Although not particularly heavy, twisting round to drag the table across the carpet to a position in front of me two or three times a day is neither good for my back, nor the chair I sit in. It is for these reasons I have reneged and installed squat, period-correct, leather-wheeled castors beneath the three feet.

Discreet castors now lurk beneath the feet.

Manoeuvrability has improved, the trade-off being a slight sponginess due to the reduced contact area of the small wheels on the carpet.

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