Joinery is a part of woodworking that involves joining together pieces of wood, to produce more complex items. Some wood joints employ fasteners, bindings, or adhesives, while others use only wood elements. The characteristics of wooden joints - strength, flexibility, toughness,appearance, etc. - derive from the properties of the joining materials and from how they are used in the joints. Therefore, different joinery techniques are used to meet differing requirements. For example, the joinery used to build a house is different from that used to make puzzle toys, although some concepts overlap.

Many wood joinery techniques either depend upon or compensate for the fact that wood is anisotropic: its material properties are different along different dimensions.

Joining wood parts together must take this into account, otherwise the joint is destined to fail. Gluing boards with the grain running perpendicular to each other is often the reason for split boards, or broken joints. Furniture from the 18th century, while made by master craftsmen, did not take this into account. The result is this masterful work suffers from broken bracket feet, which was often attached with a glue block which ran perpendicular to the base pieces. The glue blocks were fastened with both glue and nails, resulting in unequal expansion and contraction between the pieces. This was also the cause of splitting of wide boards, which were commonly used during that period.

Darrell Peart (born November 18, 1950) is an American furniture maker and designer, best known for his Greene and Greene style pieces.

Greene and Greene: Design Elements for the Workshop Linden Publishing (April 1, 2006) ISBN 978-0-941936-96-5

William Ng is a prominent youth leader and social commentator. He is currently the President of Enterprise Asia, a regional NGO based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and has business interests in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, in such diverse industries as media and publishing, exhibitions and business summits, spas, hospitality marketing and asset management.

He runs exhibition and conference company AIC Exhibitions Sdn Bhd. He is the Group Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of SME & Entrepreneurship Magazine, Southeast Asia’s leading business magazine, 5 Senses, a regional spa and wellness publication, HR Asia, and Capital Asia. He also publishes the BIMP-EAGA Business Directory – which lists businesses and suppliers from the Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines – East ASEAN Growth Area as well as World Halal Business magazine.

William Ng also contributes regularly to The Star [www.thestar.com.my], Malaysia’s leading English newspaper, on entrepreneurship and SMEs, and more recently is the spokesperson for Malaysia’s growing spa and wellness industry, appearing on programmes such as Malaysia’s NTV7 and TV3, and popular radio stations including Radio 24.