Miter Joints the Dummy Way

Basic miter joint

Once again – no surprise here, is there? – today's Dumbass of the Day is someone caught imparting "wisdom" via eHow.com. Some eHow articles are just plain wrong, some are right but just plain stupid, and some are overwritten to the point of being ridiculous. The post by this particular dumbass, Henri Bauholz, falls somewhere in between the last two categories, or perhaps in both. Take a look at "How to Make a Miter Joint"¹...

It's one of those times an eHow article isn't plain wrong, but it is still plain stupid (partially because Henri had to pad it so much to meet the minimum word count). Here's some of the essential dumbassery he included in his heartfelt desire to pick up his twenty-five bucks or so:

"Miter joints consist of two cuts made at equal angles and joined together..." Just out of curiosity, how do you join "two cuts"? "...both pieces in the miter joint of a picture frame are usually attached to each other..." Really? you know of picture frames where the two pieces aren't attached? "Miter joints are usually made for decoration, not strength..." Actually, they're never made for strength. On the other hand, have you ever heard of a splined miter, Henri? "...use... an electric nail gun that shoots out brad-sized finish nails... Don’t use a compressor-driven nail gun. They are far too powerful." Moron: there's no difference in "power" between electric brad nailers and air tools. You must be thinking of a framing nailer...

For that convoluted reasoning and that half-assed advice, Henri Bauholz is hereby awarded today's Dumbass of the Day. We hope he'll frame it and hang it next to his bed.

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_4557571_make-miter-joint.html

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