I am sorry it took me so long to respond to the various comments I have received, we just got back from vacation and it took a week to catch up. Jeremy, your comments regarding "the other half" (the better half?) made me laugh. Is that problem universal, it sounded very like Marie and myself. Our biggest problem is, I don't do drawings, I visualize it in my head, start with the exterior dimensions and then just build it. This drives Marie crazy because obviously she wants to see what the finished article will be before giving it the go ahead.

Not too many problems so far with the "purchased" dining set, and I can only hope that it continues. I really don't want to start rebuilding it.

I am so disappointed with FWW, their whole philosophy seems to revolve around office politics, money, and it would appear that whoever pays the piper calls the tune, although they go to great lengths to deny such a charge.

In their tests, they tested a 1 inch dowel against the 2 inch mortise, which is ridiculous, then they based our rating on the strength of the wood (the dowel joint did not fail). The final straw was testing a zero biscuit (about the size of a quarter) against a 2 inch mortise. Is it just me, or is this not ridiculous?

Thanks for the suggestions about the plans. I did consider this option strongly at one point, however the problem is two fold. First of all we don't have the means to put them on the PDF format and could probably only solve that problem by Michael doing an extensive computer course. The second thing is that there is not much call for plans. I have only had two or three requests in an 8 year period. Also as I said earlier, I don't do my own drawings, so therefore it would mean starting from scratch with measurements etc. etc. Having said all that I want to thank you very much Jeremy for your kind offer. Another quite timely Email arrived a while ago, asking us if we would like to link to a local company that has drawn up plans for various furniture styles. They use the Dowelmax extensively in the plans, so we are in talks with that company to see how it can benefit both companies.

It's so great to see signs of Spring after a very long and colder than normal Winter. Best wishes to all my friends and fellow bloggers.