I wouldn't mind seeing how you did the UV unwrap, sounds like it was pretty easy for you.
I had the same problem with the joins, I guess you mean they are a little curved right at the end, I think it has something to do with them being smoothed UVs. I just ended up moving the UV points in the UV texture editor until those bits joined up.

Today I learned how to use locators to control the rotation pivots of other objects, yay!



I was trying to change the rotation pivot of the actual object and came across this cryptic instruction in another CG thread.

"Create a locator , rotate locator
Select object ,then select locator and press "p" key
Freeze Transformation
Transformation Tool--> Move Tool option , switch Local-World "

The last line doesn't mean anything to me but the first three lines told me what I needed to do.