Miter Joints, the Dummy Version

This is a compound miter, Parker

We have to be honest: slogging through the bull barfed up by self-appointed freelance "experts on everything" (a status apparently conferred along with a BA in "communications") gets old after a couple of years. Sometimes it seems as though we're just running on autopilot, paging through post after post of old eHow.com rubbish... so that's when we take a "vacation" at another site. Another site such as, say, WiseGEEK niche site AboutMechanics.com, where we happened upon an article titled "What Is a Miter Joint?" by one Parker Brown; a fellow who, it appears, has an unusual obsession...

Brown opens with his (attempted) definition of a miter joint:

"A miter joint is a type of joint where two objects are joined at a beveled edge, often being an angle of about 90 degrees."

We guess that works, although "at a beveled edge" is pretty darned ambiguous in our book. That might be the least of this "professional journalist's" sins against miters, however. take, for instance, his obsession with the pipes in pipe organs: not once, but twice, Parker is fascinated enough with the notion of mitering the pipes to fit them in a confined space. Apparently his lack of training in physics rendered him incapable of understanding that the length of the pipe is what's important, not its path.

But enough about pipe organs (hear! hear!) – let's talk about miter joints. If you read through Brown's opus, you might learn that

• "Most miter joints are perpendicular...": We might be inclined to say "right angles," ourselves.
• "Sometimes, a miter joint is not perfectly perpendicular. Instead, some special circumstances require for different angles...": Ummm, Parker, lots of miter joints are at angles other than 90 degrees!
• "Accurate and well-calculated measurements will allow for the two joined pieces to be flush with one another, which allow [sic] for strong, tight miter joints.": Parker apparently does not know what "flush" means, nor does he realize that miter joints are not particularly "strong."
• "Three-dimensional miter joints can be found in many places, usually taking the form of piping arrangements.": Here's where Brown inserts his first reference to pipe organs...
• "The size of... a pipe often is too large for most churches or concert halls, so a miter joint might be employed to reduce the size of the pipe": Really, Parker, you should have looked at the picture – it takes an even number of miter joints to wrap the pipe. Oh, yeah, and it would be a lot more accurate to reference the length of the pipe.
• "Compound miter joints are different, because they have a different a number of sides and angles than what one would find on a box or frame.": No, Parker, that's not what a compound miter is: a compound miter comprises angled cuts in two planes; e.g., across the width of a board (miter) and across its thickness (bevel).
• "...the lock miter joint... is created through the use of a router, where the two pieces are joined together through cut notches...": Huh? You wanna run that past us again, Parker? And what about splined, doweled, and pegged miters?

Yup, once again the fine freelancin' folks at WiseGEEK found themselves a geek who, it turned out, wasn't at all wise about his subject. You know what? In view of the number of times we've managed to turn up a Dumbass of the Day like Brown, we're beginning to think that the site's not all that wise after all!

copyright © 2018-2022 scmrak

SE - WOODWORKING