T-molding for the Dummy Woodworker

Oak T-Molding

Our researchers here at the Antisocial Network absolutely adore the eHow.com sites, because they make it so easy to find content written by people who know absolutely nothing about the topic. Heck, they're even so research-friendly that you can follow a single contributor across a wide spectrum of topics of ignorance. The problem thus becomes "so many morons, so little time!" While checking on an older post (updating, in other words), we found a new candidate for out DotD awards, Alexis Writing (we suspect it really says, "Alex is writing"), proud possessor of a "BA in Communications." Her degree studies, however, clearly never included a wood shop class, as she ably demonstrated in "How to Make a T-molding."

The first line in Writing's introduction gives that away:

"T-molding is a device used in building floors."

We're pretty sure no one who'd actually seen a strip of t-molding would call it a "device," much less claim that it's "used in building floors." On the other hand, we'd fully expect a brief description, in particular mentioning why it's called T in the first place (nope, not in there). Of course, we know why: the profile of the molding is T-shaped, either with a slightly convex head or flat with rounded-over edges.

Alexis plunges right in to her subject, "explaining" that you want to use a jointer to

"...flatten the edges before cutting your board or rip the edges on a table saw, making sure the rip fence is parallel with the blade. A jointer is a tool used in woodworking to smooth and flatten out rough edges of wood..."

Thanks for that, Alexis, though we'd be more inclined to say "smooth the face" instead of "flatten the edges," ourselves. By the by, what rip fence are you talking about? A jointer doesn't have a "rip fence," and, by definition, the rip fence on a table saw is already parallel to the blade. Just so you know... And then there's cutting the actual shape. Alexis says, "Choose your tools. One option is to use a table saw with a molding head cutter, a special attachment that allows the saw to make rounded precision cuts necessary for molding. Another option is to use a router, which is a special hand-held or power cutting tool that is shaped to allow you to make grooves when doing woodworking projects."

If the craftsman has a jointer, it's a fairly safe bet s/he has a planer: why not use molding knives in the planer? And oh, yeah, router is a "special hand-held or power cutting tool"? and it's "shaped to allow you to make grooves"? Lordy, dummy: have you never even seen a picture of a router?

Writing says absolutely nothing about measurements, nothing about choice of materials, nothing about grain, nothing about shape. She does, however, tell us to

"Make the cut. Pass the wood into the router on its edge or face, holding it against the fence. The height of the router bit affects cut shape as does the distance from the fence. The farther the distance, the longer and wider the T-molding will become."

And you were wondering how we knew that this moron was way out of her depth, holding forth on a topic about which she knows nothing (and about which her readers will know less than nothing when finished). When we run across bullshit like this, it gives us enormous pleasure to hand out the Dumbass of the Day award. We only wish Alex(is) had not used a fake name so we could make the award in person.

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