One half of the List's famous brace of Yorkshireman provides a wealth of
sound advice which I will need to consider very carefully moving forward.
He also brings up additional questions that should be answered before
retiring this subject to the archives.  The question of weight is an
insightful one and I'm kicking myself for not including it with previous
remarks.  The bathroom scale, banished to the garage for repeated acts of
impertinence, judges the weight of this  29.5" x 51" table to be 23 lbs.
(approx. 10.5 kg, Jeff) and my trusty outside calibers hailing from Athol,
Massachusetts put panel thickness at 1/2".  Lifting this top feels "lighter
than expected" to this galoot, but that's never been an accepted standard
despite my petitions to International Bureau of Weights and Measures.

The "customer" and the primary mover and shaker in fixing these gaps is my
mother - a house proud west country girl who has grown weary of the ritual
wrangling of crumbs that escape the spackling of butter, marmalade or
Marmite on the morning toast. Doubtless you have also concluded that she is
completely dug-in with the camp of individual place settings on the great
debate v. table cloths and is impervious to such practical, low cost
prophylactics.  Not only does this necessitate a more extreme remedy, but
it also renders our crumb scraper - a travel trophy my father charmed off a
French waiter - superfluous and deprives him of a "ready made" story
telling opportunity at the table.  When dad (a less famous Yorkshireman
than the two aforementioned) saw the temporary substitute I made - a sheet
of quality birch plywood with a 1/4" round over and 6 coats of Varathane
finish - he correctly forecast my mothers delight in the color match and
its gap-free nature as well as her response that I could "take as long as I
like with the repairs".  Such proclamations bandied about in the company of
galoots are risky.  I'm not sure she was fully aware of this peril and I
didn't enlighten her.

Thanks again for all the helpful and valuable responses. I'll let you know
how it goes.

Paul, in SF



On Sat, May 21, 2022 at 11:10 PM Richard Wilson <
yorkshireman@y...> wrote: