Plywood Tools for Dummy Woodworkers

plywood

Here at the Antisocial Network, we are pretty sure we're not sexist: we're perfectly happy to skewer dumbass freelancers regardless of their gender. On the other hand, we can't help noticing that female freelancers who tackle some of the so-called "traditional" male topics such as home repair or auto mechanics tend to botch the topics. Don't blame us, we're only the messenger. 

On that note, the Dumbass of the Day award today goes to a woman writing about carpentry. She's Tonya Yirka, another member of eHow's enormous stable of freelancers. Tonya's topic is "Plywood Cutting Tools"¹ at HomeSteady.com, a topic about which she exposes her ignorance in the very first sentence of her introduction:

"Plywood is a term commonly used to describe a plethora of sheet goods, including combinations of lumber core, particle board, fiberboard and laminated veneer core. It can be a raw material, exposed veneer or coated with various plastic coatings."

Uh, no, Tonya, fiberboard and particleboard aren't the same thing as plywood. Plywood is built up of layers of solid wood, not fibers or particles mixed with glue. You hint should be that each of those layers is called a "ply"! We're not certain what she means by "raw material," but presumably that's plywood sheathing (C grade). Plastic coatings? Naahhhhhh -- that's almost always on MDF or particleboard.

Tonya goes on to misinform us that a sheet of 3/4-inch plywood weighs "70-100 lbs" -- it doesn't, it weighs about 61 pounds. The bulk of her article is a list of power tools for cutting plywood: table saw, circular saw, router, and Dremel tool; all of which are fairly common in home workshops. She also waxes ecstatic about the vertical panel saw and panel router, which aren't common perhaps because they're quite large and can be quite costly compared to the others in her list.  Where Tonya displays maximum dumbassery is in her complete and utter failure to mention one of the most important facts she should have shared: when cutting plywood with a table saw, a circular saw, or a vertical panel saw, a woodworker needs to use a blade with high tooth count – 40 teeth or more for a seven-inch blade, higher for larger-diameters. Coarser blades chip away the thin veneer on the surface of the plywood, which is something anyone who'd actually cut plywood in his or her life would know. Tonya didn't; making her a dumbass. And the Dumbass of the Day is what the Antisocial Network is all about...

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/list_7639873_plywood-cutting-tools.html

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