Folding legs mechanism

[Tom Hammond]

My wife went on one of her flea market jaunts and came home with a set of kids' stands, which our grandkids will not leave alone now. The stands are, as I picture it, the kind a child might use to eat while sitting on the floor on maybe when eating in bed. They have short folding legs with an odd mechanism for locking them in place. On each pair of legs, at the outside of one leg pivot, there is a spring and on the outside of the other leg there is a dado that the leg fits into when opened. The way it works is that you open the legs and the spring pushes them sideways until the one leg slides into the dado and locks the pair in open position. To close them, you push the legs sideways out of the dado and then fold them up.

Has anyone ever seen this kind of mechanism before? Is there any standard hardware for this kind of thing? Any sources would be greatly appreciated!!

[Terry Welty]

Pictures would help...