Tomorrow is the opening for The Hive Gallery's timber exhibition. If anyone is in the region and wants to talk about the finer points of ebony vs buloke as shachi-sen keys in glueless hardwood joinery, over a free glass of champers no less, drop into The Hive at 14:00 on Saturday the 6th.

In case your eyes glazed over the call-out right here ^^^, tomorrow is the opening for The Hive Gallery's timber exhibition. We can talk wood. Or if day drinking is your thing, come for the free champagne: 14:00. 41 Smithton Grove, Ocean Grove.

For the first time, glue failed on me. There's nothing more costly in this "business" than having to do something twice, and this one will cost somewhere in the region of $2000 in materials and time.

But the desk is coming along swimmingly, glue failures and looming destitution aside:

When I designed the desk the construction I had in mind was similar to a desk in David Savage's The Intelligent Hand (highly recommended), as it also featured a large unsupported expanse. But it also featured a lot of MDF, epoxy, and slip tenons. And while I'm no stranger to those, I am getting a little tired of the whole glue, wait, glue, wait, glue wait game, and slip tenons are almost always inferior to real tenons.

A maker whose name I can't recall said he reckons that furniture should last at least as long as the tree was alive. I like that. And in my mind that means the joinery has to hold without relying on glue, as the glue will fail centuries before the desk is as old as the Huon that's a part of its construction. I was having these thoughts before the glue failed today, and now I'm EXTRA motivated to move away from relying on glue.

David's desk in The Intelligent Hand derived a lot of its rigidity from the drawer cavities which he made as an open ended MDF box, screwed to the top from underneath. While his work was staggering in its appearance, I can't help feel (rightly or wrongly) that this construction method is a little... insufficient.

Seeing as I have to remake the drawer cavities anyway, what I've decided to do is a compromise between the corner I've built myself into and the way I'd prefer to do things if I didn't have to compromise. A semi-traditional frame will lock to the top with sliding dovetail keys (as if by magic, I put the battens in the perfect location for this). The drawer cavity will tenon into the rear stretcher. The drawers themselves will be a departure from my usual British method (dovetails and piston-fit), and instead will be an adaptation of the NK drawer using sliding dovetails all around, which eliminates any reliance on glue. And in theory will be far less time consuming than the British method. All tenons will be wedged, keyed or pinned where possible.

I'm happier with this compromise than I am with Titebond.

This week has been unproductive. Lots of umming and ahhing and scratching myself and wondering what to do next when I should've just been getting work done. Then right as a tool was about to be turned on, a neighbour popped round for a favour. And as soon as that was done, another neighbour popped round for a favour. It's tough being popular.

Here's to hoping for a better week ahead.

-- Jake