No, not that kind of joint...and following my post about posture and backs, I guess you think this is about elbows and knees and knuckles and other such sub-cutaenous joints.
No.
This is about joints between bits of wood, and how much more complicated they are than you would think after a cursory glance at a table or two, or after having a few Ikea Moments (tm). Well, they are certainly more complicated than I thought after said cursory glances and Ikea Moments (tm).
My First Table (tm) seems to be coming out stable and strong and not wobbly or liable to fall apart...yet...But. There are gaps everywhere, mitred joints that are distinctly not joined up - or even aligned anywhere near each other - and bits that were meant to be perpendicular to other bits that will never know the meaning of the word.
Why this huge chasm between what Ikea manage to do thousands of times a day, and what I have struggled over the past week to achieve?
Bends. You see, the wood that Ikea have has been cut, planed, sanded and otherwise processed to fine tolerances by BIG machines. It's probably also been bred and grown specifically to make a certain type of piece that fits into their furniture.
The more predictable bits of the wood I used came from the local DIY centre, and were chosen by a person with no skill or experience in doing so (me) with criteria that had more to do with it being cheap and about the right size than anything I should have been considering.
The less predictable bits of wood came from the floor of the barn, and took 3 days worth of hard work with increasingly powerful power tools before they were in any kind of state to be called a set of four very nice, rustic oak table legs. Wood is a natural, once living thing. Unless you are Ikea (or a real carpenter), it is unpredictable, bent, mis-shapen and not the kind of thing that it's easy to throw together without planning, fore-thought and some of that skill and experience I am currently lacking.
As long as my table carries on doing what it is supposed to (keeping things the correct distance from the floor) without resorting to wobbling or falling apart, then I will remain proud of it.
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A favourite part of my formative years was the "play what I wrote" on the Morcambe and Wise show. I hope I'll be able to stand in their shadow - way back in their shadow.
Not that I'll manage to be amusing, nor will anything I scrawl here be as well crafted. But I'll be happy if I manage to ignore my own social programming and allow a little of their anarchy, irreverance, intelligence, wit and humour to make their way onto these pages. I doubt it will happen, but I can dream.
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