Folding Ping Pong Table From Wall

[fundmark19]

Bringing down from the roof would also be do able since I believe I will be doing a drop ceiling so I can just put the tiles on the bottom of the table. I think finding a cable winch system to make it automatic would be tough to do and even harder to make it affordable

It would look really bad ass if I turned my tv remote on and my projector screen drops followed by the ping pong table at same time.

[Sliver]

I checked out Princess Auto, fundmark. Couldn't find anything there that would work. But I did find external iPod speakers for $0.25 if anybody's interested.

[fundmark19]

Good effort silver! Which one did you go to north or south?

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by fundmark19

Good effort silver! Which one did you go to north or south?

South (off Barlow and 114th or whatever that road is). Ended up killing way too much time looking at all the weird stuff there too haha.

[topfiverecords]

Sounds like googling Telescoping hinges or telescoping table hinges might find something.

Aren't there trucks with telescoping tailgates?

[fundmark19]

Yes topfive! We are going in the right direction. Now we just need to find a 90 degree telescoping heavy duty hinge! At least we now have a name for them

[TSXCman]

Originally Posted by fundmark19

Yes topfive! We are going in the right direction. Now we just need to find a 90 degree telescoping heavy duty hinge! At least we now have a name for them

fundmark, did my design help you at all?

[fundmark19]

Sort of looked a little confusing on the drawing. I assume it is a hinge that folds down then kicks forward and also lowers a support leg at same time?

[4X4]

I have (oh god) a plan.

You need two bars (the width of the ping pong table) on hinges. You attach the hinges to the wall so that when they're open, the bars stick out from the wall, then you drill holes in the side of the table and slide it onto the bars so that the table is suspended on the bars. Assuming that you've corrected for the depth of the table, you can now flip the table up against the wall. It's probably a good idea to re-enforce the bottom of the table so that the bars are in some kind of channel.

Assuming that you hung the hinges at the desired playing height, you can now lower the table and just pull it out on the bars as far away from the wall as you want, for proper play. To sturdy the other side of the table, attach legs at either corner (top side when the table is up) that swivel downward 90 degrees. If they're measured properly, you never have to worry about being level, you just flip the table down, slide it out on the bars, then flip down the two legs, and your table has four load points.

Now all you have to do is pretty up the "bottom" of the table. Since the bars are concealed by being drilled into the side of the table, and the legs, when folded, are on the top of the closed table, you could either find a piece of art that is the same size as a table, or else put plywood on it, and then a canvas, and let your wife paint a pretty picture of flowers and meadows.

Folded up, this thing shouldn't be any thicker than a regular ping pong table plus some re-enforcement and then some 1/2" plywood. I think the only tricky thing here is the hinges. You need some L style hinges and some bars, and a buddy to weld them together. If you fashion the table first, you can build your custom hinges afterward.

The only problem I can think of is how wide a table is. The table width plus the height you want it resting at has to be less than your ceiling height. I'm sorry if that's obvious to you, I only thought of it as I finished thinking of this whole idea.

[fundmark19]

4x4 you may be a genious! You may have also found another problem though. Ceiling height. I never factored that in


I wish my wife could paint me flowers and a meadow! She is not artistic. Painting is least of worries

[4X4]

According to this, it would work even with 8' ceilings. It might look weird being so close to the ceiling though. With 9' ceilings, you're golden.

[fundmark19]

Ok here are the dimensions we are working with

Have full floor to ceiling height of 8ft. This is unfinished so there will be some inches lost.

Official Ping Pong table size--- Room size
Height 30"--- Height 90" (take off 6" for roof and floor)
Length 108" --- Length 170" Gives 62" of room 31" per side
Width 60"--- Width 125" Gives 65" of room 32.5" per side

Recommended room length size 5-6 (60"-72") feet of room behind each end line
Recommended room width is 3 (36") feet per end line

So height wise we are pretty much bang on. Might look a little goofy having picture go all the way to roof but not to bad. We are definitely short on total distance but this isn't going to be for pro ping pong matches more just hanging out and beerpong. And the ability to say I have a pingpong table that comes out of the wall.

Average male arm length is 30" long so if we out the supports 25" away from center that would make it possible to be beside the table and reach the net easily for any drop shots.

Does anyone good with physics know if having the supports there with 34"ish of overhang would make it stable?

[TSXCman]

Originally Posted by fundmark19

Sort of looked a little confusing on the drawing. I assume it is a hinge that folds down then kicks forward and also lowers a support leg at same time?

Yep, pretty much a heavy duty sliding track screwed into the sides of the table. the track end is secured by a hinge on the wall. you can to the legs pretty simply by copying a pre-existing design.

pull the table down till almost level with the floor, walk back a few feet pulling it with you, and let go

[fundmark19]

Originally Posted by TSXCman

Yep, pretty much a heavy duty sliding track screwed into the sides of the table. the track end is secured by a hinge on the wall. you can to the legs pretty simply by copying a pre-existing design.

pull the table down till almost level with the floor, walk back a few feet pulling it with you, and let go

do we know aprox price and weight restrictions?

They only problem as well is having the sliders on the outside of table as well. that will restrict quite a bit of gameplay

[onetwo_threefour]

i have a thought, but I don't draw, and this may be kind of hard to describe well without a visual but I'll give it a shot.

First you would install two vertical rails of some sort on the wall, one on either side of the centreline of the table maybe 1/3 - 1/2 way of the distance from the centre line to the edge of the table on either side with the bottom end of these rails at roughly the height that the bottom edge of the table will be when in wall hanging mode (the distance out from the centreline will dictate how much or little they will interfere with playing at the side of the table closest to the wall vs. stability of the table). These rails are going to allow you to have a hinge height that isn't fixed so the rest of this design can work. It's going to have to be designed either by counter weight and pulley or some kind of motor (if you're being fancy) so that as the top edge of the table swings out the bottom edge with hinges rises up on the rails to playing height. If you're not being fancy I would suggest that as you swing out the top with one hand you'll use the other hand to guide the lower hinged edge up along the wall to playing height. For rails, what I'm imagining is something like the good steel ball bearing rails that a good keyboard tray runs on.

Second, you attach an L bracket to each of the vertical rails that can slide up and down. the lower part of the L should be as close to the thickness of the table as you can manage, but if too long, shims will probably allow adjustment for the attachment of hinges I will get to in a moment. Again if you think of a keyboard tray, I'm envisioning the L brackets being attached to the piece that slides between the ball bearings in the rail so now you have two L brackets sticking out of the wall that you can rest the bottom edge of the ping pong table on when it's hanging on the wall that can slide up the wall a couple of feet. Next you need to construct lateral supports attached to the bottom of the table that will have a couple of features, thinness, sliding rails and legs that swing out There will be two supports on the underside that line up with each of the rails on the wall. so that when hanging on the wall. the ends of thes supports rest on the bottoms of the L brackets. What I'm thinking of here for weight, stiffness and support is a couple of pieces of bar aluminum, not too thick, but at least a couple of inches wide, however, there are probably better ideas and wood may work although I think it might get too thick.

Before attaching these to the table though we need to make a way for the table to slide out, so between the aluminum and the underside of the table (what you see in front of you when it's hanging on the wall) we have to install another slider of some sort. In this case, I think the ball bearing rails of a good keyboard tray would be almost perfect with little modification. When you fold the table down from the wall, the vertical rails allow the bottom end to slide up to playing height, while the rails in between the lateral table supports and the underside of the table allow you to slide the table top away from the wall once it's in position. As long as you don't slide it out too far past the end of the aluminum supports, you avoid the cantilever problem.

The only thing left is to put four legs on the underside of the lateral supports that will swing out as the table folds down from the wall but lay flat against the back of the aluminum supports while hanging and attach the supports to the bottom of the wall rails with some good hinges. I think you'd want hinges that lock out at 180 degrees since they would sit at 90 degrees when the table is folded up against the wall.

The toughest thing about this design as I see it is that the fold out legs will make it impossible to put any sort of a permanent cover on the underside of the table to hide the installation, but I really think you need legs. Cantilevering the table is just asking for trouble on beer pong night.

You could do something like a cool wall hanging or picture in front that hinges up toward the ceiling on a motor as the ping pong table swings down. It would be pretty James Bond. You could even install some low profile cool lighting, like led's on the back of the picture that lights up as it swings up to the ceiling, giving you direct lighting down on to your table. if you don't want to motorize, you could just swing it out by hand and have something like an awning support that holds it up, which would be pretty simple to custom make with some dowelling or could be bought presumably.

It's kind of complicated sounding, but I think it's totally doable and would look awesome as it all unfolds from the wall.

If you like it I could try to give you some rough sketches to help visualize it, but it wouldn't be anything great. I can see it all in my head, but translating to paper is tricky for me.

Whew.... posted from my PlayBook... really!

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

I am sure this has been covered but could you disguise two of the legs as the frame for the picture thus requiring not all the weight of a ping pong table to rest entirely on the hinge? I am not an engineer but I do know that the tables weigh quite a bit plus there is the whole net thing which compounds the problems a bit.

[photon]

Yeah like I said before at a minimum you should have outside legs that fold down for the part of the table furthest from the wall, if not all four corners, to support the table against any weight from players would make the hinge design on the wall pretty important.. the whole leverage thing.

If you can get a custom design though by someone who can weld then that might work, something with an angle brace that can rotate or something so that the hinge can bear more weight.

[fundmark19]

I was thinking the same thing with legs being part of the frame it's self. I like the idea of swinging out all on bearings but I think that may start getting expensive and complicated.

[fundmark19]

I was thinking the same thing with legs being part of the frame it's self. I like the idea of swinging out all on bearings but I think that may start getting expensive and complicated.

Let's talk counter weights. I woke up and remembered how heavy ping pong tables are. This will need to be able to be lowered and lifted by 1 person. The only place for a counter weight would across the width of room in furnace room or far corner of the hanging wall of length of table behind theater chairs.

[surferguy]

Well you could try and use gas pistons to assist in lowering, bet then you are tied to the wall and would not be able to extend it out for game play.