Dummies Confused About Routers

Letter template and base for a plunge router

Apparently desperate to fill out their latest niche site with content, the Techwallas over at  Leaf Group (the folks formerly known as Demand Media) bulk-imported a lot of techy-seeming material from the mother site, eHow.com. We could have told them that's a mistake, but they know everything... except perhaps that the word "router" doesn't always refer to an electronic device. It's also a power tool, but hey: the leafies expected techspertise regardless. That's apparently how Lacy Enderson ended up as one of their wallas, and "How to Make Letters With a Router" is why she's picking up her thirteenth DotD award. We mean, really: can you make letters with your Linksys? Sheesh...

Lacy's been here before, with a specialization in being a dummy about carpentry and power tools. This time is no different, as she bumbles her way through instructions reworded from about a dozen different sources. As usual, she  opens with a bold, albeit erroneous statement:

"Routers allow woodworkers to cut wood and create designs. There are 20 to 30 different router bits available, and the routers themselves come in different sizes for different projects."

We wish there were only "20 to 30 different router bits" — although she'd probably be in the ballpark if she said "profiles" instead of "bits" — but we digress. It's her bull about "different sizes for different projects" that we found lacking: apparently, Lacy thinks a plunge router and a fixed-base router are "different sizes." Moron...

Among Lacy's more interesting logical errors are instructions (reworded from more authoritative sources, we're sure) such as

It's easy to route letters for a sign if you have the proper bits and router accessories – idiot: you meant "rout," right?  (Ob. hack: it isn't "easy.") Attach a corner base with a fixed bit already on it. – WTF is a "corner base"? or, for that matter, a "fixed bit"? there are router bits that aren't fixed? Oh, the horror! Lay your router on the workpiece. Line up the corner bit with the template lines. – OK, now it's a "corner bit"; surely she doesn't mean "corner round bit," does she? Firmly holding both sides of the router handles, move the machine along the lines. – We assume she meant "the handles on both sides," but with Lacy it's hard to tell... Routing letters requires a hand-held router. A mounted router isn't recommended. Working on top of the project allows for more control and precision. – Not to mention that you can't cut anything but a straight line with a router mounted in a router table (another woodworking device that Lacy also doesn't understand)

Nope, Lacy hasn't the foggiest idea what she's talking about and, for that matter, we can't figure it out, either: is she trying to tell someone how to cut letter shapes from wood, or carve a sign? Who knows? Well, no one who read this rubbish at eHow (or at Techwalla) knows how to do it, either; and this crap has been online for more than seven years! Small wonder the website, whatever its incarnation, and Lacy herself collect Dumbass of the Day awards like elephants eat peanuts!

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