Anatomy, Woodworking and Dummies (eHow Week)

Wood lathe

The old joke says, they way to tell when a lawyer is lying that his lips are moving. With far too many of the freelancers who barfed up content for places like eHow.com, the joke would have read, "his fingers are typing." Most of the time you have to know what he (or she) is writing about, but not always: some of the misinformation is so poorly reworded from the original source that a careful reader can spot the bullshit within a few sentences. Today's example, courtesy of eHow.com, is Lacy Enderson (a repeat visitor), who used that Masters in Biblical Counseling of hers to sell woodworking advice in "How to Use Wood Lathe Tools."¹

Lacy's "advice" – after reordering a general list of the tools one needs when using a lathe and telling you to sharpen them – consists of the following steps:

"3: Use the left hand to guide the tool by holding your hand over the tool near the blade edge. Rest your little finger and the back of your palm on the tool rest, located in the center of your wood lathe machine. 4: Lay your lathe tools on the tool rest, positioned at an angle; the cutting edge above the cylinder. Firmly support the tool with both hands. Let the wood come to the tool for best results." Now we don't know about you, but we don't have a "back of [our] palm," and if we did we're not sure how we could lay it on the tool rest and then lay the tool on the rest, too. Obviously Lacy doesn't know jack about anatomy, and she also doesn't know jack about wood lathes. Chances are good that she wouldn't know a wood lathe if one bit her on the butt.

We especially liked Ms Enderson's warning at the end of her piece, which tells us, "When using a chisel try not to cut too deep, as this will cause the tool to burn." Really – the tool will burn? Didn't the original, by any chance, say that the tool would burn the wood? Lacy, you are definitely a prime candidate for Dumbass of the Day...

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was    ehow.com/how_4557168_use-wood-lathe-tools.html

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