Router Bits for Woodworking Dummies

Rail and stile router bits

If there's one thing that chaps our collective hiney here at the Antisocial Network, it's freelance writers who don't know anything about a topic yet still have the nerve to write advice. eHow.com has always been full of this kind of crapola because the site's greedy members knew all they had to do to collect some cold, hard cash was to reword the information from a forum somewhere. Of course, if you don't know anything about the subject, it's pretty easy to get it wrong: wrong, like Lacy Enderson (her again!) when she wrote about "How to Use Rail and Stile Router Bits."¹

Lacy's unfamiliarity with rail and stile router bits – with routers in general, in fact – is patently obvious because the phrase "tongue and groove" does not appear anywhere in the content, even though that's the main use of these bits! Some of her other router-bit stupidity:

"Most of the rail and stile router bits are solid carbide, long lasting and stay sharper longer": Copied from advertising content. Many rail-and-stile bits are carbide tipped and some are even - gasp! - plain steel! "These bits are made from the highest quality material and are expert ground and brazed": Wait: if they're solid carbide, what's been brazed? Does Lacy even know what brazing is? "Set up the rail router bit first by inserting the bit into a table router and setting the bit height for the right thickness of the wood": A "table router"? Is there such a thing? Just the clumsy wording reinforces Ms Enderson's lack of familiarity with routers, router bits, and joinery. "Set up the stile bit by making sure there is an appropriate amount of material at the backside of the groove to support the panel": We have no earthly idea what this is supposed to mean in the context of joinery¹. It's obvious that neither does Lacy Enderson.

Thanks for making our day with your special brand of dumbassery, Lacy Enderson. We wonder if while you were studying for that "Masters in Biblical Counseling" of yours you happened to run across Exodus 20:15-16, either (or both) of which suggest that using someone else's words and pretending that you know what you're talking about are violations of The Big Ten... Dumbass! 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_4827427_use-rail-stile-router-bits.html
² Actually, we do: she's talking about using the stile bit for paneled doors... or, more accurately, the content she tried to reword was talking about it.

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