Thursday, June 19, 2008

Assembling a Drafting Table - Paulius Style!

1) Unpack all the parts.

2) Look at instructions and realize they might as well be in Old Norse runes.

3) Spend 10 minutes trying to bolt the two side pieces to the bottom and fail.

4) Realize that the squiggly unlabeled things on the instruction sheet aren’t the feet as you’d thought, but special threaded nuts that enable you screw the side pieces to the bottom. Screw them on with a chuckle.

5) Spend ten minutes bolting the main back piece on nice and tight.

6) Loosen main back piece to fit other support that won’t fit with the back piece on.

7) Spend another ten minutes bolting on back piece.

8) Attempt to fit ratchet arm for work surface and discover the back piece does not have the necessary holes.

9) Swear loudly upon realizing back piece is on upside down.

10) Take back piece off, whacking fingernail in process.

11) Swear loudly.

12) Attach back piece for the third time.

13) Bolt on ratchet arm and pride yourself on being on ‘the home stretch’.

14) Attempt to attach work surface, onto to realize holes are missing on the side pieces as well.

15) Realise that the left side-piece is on the right and vice-versa.

16) Invent new and interesting swearwords as you proceed to take the whole damn thing apart and start over. Curse the manufacturer for not giving you any of the damn information you need.

17) Reassemble whole desk and attach work surface.

18) Remove work surface because you forgot to screw on the ‘little black things of unknown function’ to the side of the desk.

19) Screw on mysterious black objects and get them nice and tight.

20) Attach work surface.

21) Realize black things are clips to hold tool-trays.

22) Realize they’re on far too tight to allow you to clip the tool-trays on.

23) Say ‘fuck it’ and force them on anyway.

24) Snap off one of the clips.

25) Chant mantra “I really didn’t need four trays anyway…I really didn’t need four trays anyway.”

26) Sit back and admire handiwork.

27) Find screws on floor and wonder why they gave you spares.

28) Note support bar standing in corner…where you placed it during second disassembly.

29) Realize there’s no way to bolt on support bar without taking the entire thing apart. Also realize how rickety the thing is without it.

30) Return to step one.

1 comment:

OzzyC said...

That's a cool gift. Sorry though... your wife's not better than mine.

Re: the assembly process. That's pretty much how I assembled all of my RTA furniture. Eventually, I got to the point where I didn't need the stinkin' manual anymore. That's also the point where I realized that I had too much crappy furniture around the house and started buying the real stuff.