Last week I reported the Titebond failure and a two-thousand-dollar headache. This week the headache has become a desk I prefer. The original cavities were veneered ply — modern, time efficient, sensible, now relegated to future jig use. The replacements are a semi-traditional web-frame that locks to the top with sliding dovetail keys, and by some accident of earlier planning the battens I'd already fixed land exactly where the keys need them. The drawer cavity tenons into the rear and side stretchers. The web-frame tenons into itself and is stiffer than any middle-aged man can hope to be.

It took most of the day to fettle and faff with assembling and disassembling the desk, measuring, marking, mortising, fettling and faffing the keys, but in the end they slid home snug as a bug in a mortise. I like the outcome more than I like how long it takes to do this kind of thing.

I've been chewing over what it means to work heartily; doing things the best way I know how without begrudging how long it takes. All day there was a nagging voice at the back of my mind reminding me that pocket holes would do the same job as the keys and in 10 minutes I'd be done. But the keyed way is superior, and screwing the top screws me out of joy. Doing good work simply because it's good work is a delight, even if it burns a time budget that's already used up.

The gallery opened on Saturday and the pieces were well received, as they say. I managed to stand around with a glass of champagne looking like a man to the manor born, and not like a man who'd spent the week in a tin shed dealing with glue failure and narrowly avoiding a full-blown adult tantrum. The pass-around joinery samples earned their keep — people picked them up, turned them over, asked the right questions, and paid all the appropriate compliments. And left without buying anything, as is the way.

I also got into a warmer than room temperature conversation — let's call it a debate — with a gentleman about domino 'joinery'. I'm thinking of writing an essay: "The Domino Is Awful and We Should All Be Ashamed." I'm worried my stance won't be clear enough.

Next week: it's pre-finish and assembly time for the desk. Into the home straight, now.

— Jake