Knee (construction)

In woodworking, a knee is a bent piece of wood that takes stress. Knees are often used in the construction of wooden boats and ships, as natural angle brackets to fasten a deck to the hull. The best knees are those in which the wood grain follows the bend. This can be achieved by steam bending or laminating, but the best knees are those that have grown that way: one type is a length of a tree's trunk with a big branch coming out at its top end.

Another example of useful wood with curved grain was got by grubbing up a big oak stump and splitting it into wedges with one large root on each wedge; each wedge was then carved into a rib for a small boat.