Planter Boxes for the Dummy Carpenter

Pretty Wooden Planter Box

Head over to your local library or BigBox hardware store, and you're going to find dozens if not hundreds of DIY books filled with instructions for simple woodworking and carpentry projects. The same goes at Amazon.com, for that matter. The typical layout of a project goes along the lines of description, materials list, instructions. If it's a fairly involved project, you'll probably find a cutting list with dimensions of the different parts you'll need to cut. Experienced DIY writers know the "lingo" of the trades and (at least usually) write step-by-step instructions. On the other hand, there are fakes like Lina Schofield, who attempted to explain to the readers of eHow.com (really: do people never learn?) "How to Make a Wooden Planter Box"¹; and failed. Miserably.

Lina had already demonstrated her incompetence once before in these pages, and she doesn't disprove her qualifications as a DotD this time. Where someone who knew her way around projects would have at least described the planter beforehand, Lina expends her entire DMS-mandated introduction explaining why one might want to build one, though not before this inane statement:

"Building an attractive wooden planter box is a feasible option for most people in this scenario, and it takes less time than you would expect."

Well, maybe: but following this dumbass's instructions would certainly reduce said feasibility for all but the most patient (and perhaps telepathic) carpenters! Let's start with her materials list:

• 4 pieces of wood 17 1/2 inches long, angle cut at 45 degrees
• 14 pieces of wood 14 1/2 inches
• 5 pieces of wood 10 1/2 inches
• Package 3 inch galvanized nails

Even our most experienced DIY carpenter scratched her head at the idea of a piece of wood "angle cut at 45 degrees": does this mean mitered? beveled? And even the stupidest carpenter would begin to wonder, "Gee: how wide are these supposed to be?" Not to mention, box nails? common nails? finish nails? Duh. But as dumbass as the materials list is, the instructions are -- believe it or not -- even worse! Take four of the 14 1/2 inch pieces of wood and lay them beside each other so they are connected. Repeat, making a separate pile. Lay out three pieces of the 14 1/2 inch wood together in the same manner. Repeat, and make another separate pile. Drill down at an angle on the top [right corners of each individual 14 1/2 inch wood piece, then drill up at an angle at each right bottom corner.

WTF, we wondered, does "lay them beside each other so they are connected" mean? And just WHAT are those "drill here" instructions supposed to mean? But never fear, Lina's here -- with more "instructions":

"Nail the galvanized nails into these angles and connect the pieces of each pile using the hammer until you have produced two side walls and two front walls..."

Huh? It just gets worse from there, mostly because we still have no idea WTF Lina's taking about. But then we checked her DMS-mandated reference section: that's where we learned that Lina had simply stolen and reworded the plans from another website, one that included images and complete dimensions! If you went to the original, you could actually build the planter at right!

But back to Lina: her penultimate instruction to her readers is

"Nail together the remaining four pieces of wood cut at 45 degree angles so they line up..."

...which means absolutely nothing. Based on the original website's images, she's telling us to create a mitered coping akin to a rough picture frame (see image at right) -- but she doesn't know the word "miter"! Yet the website paid this ignorant dumbass for her "work." Small wonder we're able to collect dozens of Dumbass of the Day nominees from eHow every time we stop by...

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_6709663_make-wooden-planter-box.html

copyright © 2016-2022 scmrak

DDIY - CARPENTRY