P-K's lovely new galley table reminds me that one of the many projects on tap is rethinking/reworking our saloon table. It mounts on a stainless bracket that slides vertically on a stainless pole which extends from sole to overhead. It is propped to table height by an aluminum tube extending into a pair of stainless steel sockets, one on the sole and one on the underside of the table. The fore and aft fiddles are movable/removable with pins engaging into little brass ferrules (the missing one is on a shelf). There are no lateral fiddles. Lift the table, remove the aluminum tube, and the table can be lowered to sit on cleats on the settee front forming a double bed. Settee back cushions fill the space. There's a separate little filler with folding legs, and a cushion, that fills the remaining rectangular space over the drawer at the bottom of the picture.
This is not a solution that's above reproach. The small cushions do not stay in place when it's a bed. It's worth your fingers to get the table down and aligned with the settees. You can hardly get the thing back up after it's down; clearances are snug. The alignment of settee front and table edge means that diners and sitters have to shuggle in and to sit up straight (maybe great for droopy teenagers, but not for circumferentially-challenged adults!). An un-looked-for advantage is that the drop leaf and table arrangement is very satisfactory to the dawg. A perfect hidey hole.
I'd like an easy design which would allow me to pull the table out and store it somewhere easy and not have the fixed supports screwed to the sole and overhead. It would have to be substantial if left in place at sea. It should look much the same as though LeComte himself had made it. I had thought we'd simply remove it and see whether the saloon suddenly became large enough to lounge around in - to see whether the whole idea has merit worth making the effort for.
I had grumped on P-K's post that the original breadboarded Makore veneer top has been covered by the wrong wood. Sorta' looks like a high-end Mahogany door skin, no?