Dim on Nostr: Put a hockey puck on an icy table. Tip the table, and the puck will slide. If you ...

Put a hockey puck on an icy table. Tip the table, and the puck will slide. If you want to keep it from sliding, put your finger on the puck and press down, and you can tilt the table more before the puck slips. If you really want to keep the puck in place as the table tilts more and more, you don't press down, you press the puck into the table. In the 'normal' direction.

You are exactly right when you say that the amount of friction depends on how hard the two objects (puck and table) are pressed directly together. Any direction that deviates from perfectly perpendicular to the table surface will try to move the puck. Friction will oppose this motion, until it can't.