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Sunday, October 3, 2010

Pssst...They're called sabots.

I learned a new word today. The brass tips on tapered legs aren't called "brass tips on tapered legs" by people in the know. They're called sabots.

I saw the term used on a well-known antique site, and a little research confirmed that I had been woefully uninformed for the past sixty years. The word is more commonly used to refer to a shoe, specifically a clog or a wooden shoe most of us associate with windmills and tulips, but it is used in the furniture industry to denote the metal "shoe" on the tip of a chair, sofa or table leg.

I'll rest easier tonight knowing that's been cleared up...unless I wake up at 3 a.m. wondering how many other furniture terms I don't know.

1stdibs.com

circajerk.com

marble-go.com

4 comments:

  1. I didn't know that either! Thanks for the heads up! It's so funny when you find out that things as simple and as small as that have terms...like those things on the ends of your shoelaces...those have a name too, but, alas, I forget.

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  2. OK, Janey...I tried to put that out of my mind for days, because I knew it was waaaaaaay too OC for me to rush to Google and try to find out about the shoelace thing the minute I read your comment, but my curiosity finally won out. They're called AGLETS. Who knew? LOL

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  3. Hi! By any chance, do you know where I could purchase replacement sabots, such as the ones in the pictures above? thanks!

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  4. @hambrich: I have searched high and low, and I havenn't run across any for sale separately yet. The only thing we've been able to do is buy used legs on eBay and Etsy and reuse their sabots if we don't want to swap out all the lets. In those cases, you have to trust that the seller takes really good measurements. If I ever find a supplier, I'll post about it here.

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