Drop-leaf Table Repair

An old antique drop-leaf table serves as a plant stand and time reference:

While adjusting the clock for Daylight Saving Time, one of the folding leaves … folded, dumping the clock on the floor.

It turns out the latches holding the leaves in place have been repaired / replaced many times since the table left the factory:

I’m certain the latch in the upper right came from my father’s hands.

Although it’s an antique, it’s not a priceless antique, so I had no compunction about drilling out the wood screw holes, installing metric threaded inserts, and converting all the screws to M4 button heads:

That’s a brad-point bit intended to produce clean-sided flat-bottom holes (modulo a triangular pit from the tip) exactly right for screwing an insert all the way down. The table top just barely fit on the drill press, so I could set the depth stop to make the answer come out right every time.

A dot of low-strength threadlocker keeps the screws from turning, although the table has pretty much reached a steady state these days.

That was easy …