Tables that wander are a daily battle in an art room. Kids lean, bump, and scoot, and by sixth period the rows look like a game of pick-up sticks. My fix: glue a furniture cup under every table leg so the tables stay put.
What sticks
My floor is polished vinyl composition tile. I’ve tried double-sided carpet tape and I’ve tried glue. Gorilla Glue works best for me, and it’s the original brown kind. It dries “crispy” and foams up. It also peels off the floor easily when I’m ready.
- Put one drop on the bottom of the cup.
- Dampen the floor spot with a wet towel.
- Set the cup in place under the leg.
DO NOT use clear Gorilla Glue! It’s a different formula. For a while they made a white version that looked clear in the bottle but worked like the original, and I used it happily until they quietly discontinued it. Then I bought the new CLEAR variety, thinking it was the white I’d always used. Different formula! It doesn’t come up easily, and at the end of the year I had to fix the mess with a disc sander. Stick with the brown.
Getting the rows straight
Before anything gets glued, the tables need to be lined up. I’ve done it with a tape measure from the wall and a string to line up the table edges. This year I had a laser level, which made it even easier.
You might think you could just line the feet up with the floor tiles. That only works if the legs are mounted in the same spot on every table, and in my experience most aren’t. Line up the table edges, not the feet, and then glue the cups wherever the feet land.
Once the cups are down, the rows stay straight all year. I remove them at the end of the year by gently tapping the side of them with a hammer or wood block. They release and go skidding across the floor. If your afraid of the glue, squares of double sided tape work well….the type made for carpet and rugs. I used these a while but the adhesive stays gummy and you have to use WD40 to remove residue. Don’t pry up the cups to remove. Apply force to the side to release them easily.
