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The Eli-Tables Story

From 1989, until I was retired, by my legs, in 2011, I worked as a Theatrical Stage Carpenter and Stagehand. I also did one-off side gigs designing/building/installing custom furniture and casegoods. 

To support work we used shop-built wooden folding trestle horses (of the kind you can now get in plastic); or folding tables. But the problem with saw-horses is that the're either too close together or too far apart. When you're making a cut either the off-cut must hang overboard; or, if it's between horses, as you get to the end of the cut, the saw binds up. The problem with a table is that the top is always in the way. You can't get to the underside of something you're working on; and, just like with a pair of horses you're aways in danger of cutting into them. There's also no easy way to clamp to either of them them.

It's often essental to have portable bench-type power-tools to hand. You can use them on the floor or you can have a separate portable stand for each. 

Sometimes indiviuals and groups of carpenters work separately on components which must subsequently come back into perfect registration. To accomplish this a master layout is made on 4x8 sheets of 1/4" Luan ply laid over the construction deck. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to separate the layout into sections, work your parts at standing hight (and not on the floor.) Secure in the knowledge that since you're all working from the same layout; it will all come together in the end.

It was from this that the Eli-Tables concept, a modular infintely expandable and re-configurable work support, arose. It's a table that has no top.

Lab Prototype 

Click for video

Users of Eli-Tables

Anyone who works on a jobsite or in a multi-use space, who needs to support either workpieces (of any material, size or description) and/or portable bench-type power tools; at a convenient working height.

This includes:

Professional Residential and Commercial Construction/Maintenance/Renovation providers

Do-it-Yourselfers and Owner/Operators

Installers of every description

Indoor and Outdoor Event service providers

TV, Film and Theatrical Production companies

Touring Attractions

Reconfigurable Light Manufacturing Facilities

Local, state and federal government construction and maintenance operations

Organizations which provide disaster recovery services or community based construction projects

The military

USPS

PO Box 14
Monticello, NY 12701-0014