Your Barn Door's Open, Dummy

Double rolling barn doors

It's not uncommon for the Antisocial Network to backcheck the references cited by eHow.com freelancers, not least because many times the references don't contain the "information" the authors claim. Sometimes the information's right, but usually it's just some website with an informative-sounding name that the author used to cover up rewording Wikipedia. Today's DotD, returning winner Jagg Xaxx,¹ got some real references, but his ignorance led him to omit some important information and botch some. Here are some of the goofs he made in "How to Build a Large Wooden Barn Door" at Hunker.com.

Leaf didn't bother to migrate Xaxx's materials list, but we found it in the original eHow.com post by using archive.org. That's where he made his first mistake, telling readers that to build an 8 x 8 door, you needed "16 boards, 1 inch thick by 6 inches wide by 8 feet long." Those who've actually worked with lumber know that a 1-by-6 is neither 1" thick nor 6" wide; which renders his step 1,

"Lay the 1 inch thick boards out on a flat surface, pressed together tightly..."

...next to useless. That's because 16 1-by-6s "pressed together tightly" will be seven feet wide, not eight. Jagg's reference actually specified "rough-cut lumber," for what it's worth. Xaxx also wanted his readers to,

"Lay them on a bench or table so that the ends of the boards are hanging off the sides of the table with the undersides accessible." Whatever he means by "undersides" notwithstanding, that's one darned big table... Moving right along, Jagg wants you to screw the boards to 2-by-6s set crosswise near the top and bottom, then cut a diagonal and do the same. Here's one place our boy (who claims a doctorate in Art History [yeah, sure]) went wonky: the instructions he cribbed are for a 4 by 8 door, and even for that size they use two diagonals. Jagg only uses one for an 8 by 8 door and doesn't tell his readers to place it with the high end of the diagonal at the hinge side. Oops.

Speaking of hinges, Xaxx says to

"Attach three of the biggest hinges you can find to one side of the door"

There's no mention of using T-strap hinges (as specified by his reference) or of mounting hinges to the 2-by-6 crosspieces to strengthen his construction. Oops. Jagg also says absolutely nothing about squaring the lumber during construction (eHowians never seem to say anything about squares).
Who knows whether this door would even hold together long enough to hang it, but we suspect it would start to sag almost immediately and those "biggest hinges you can find" would probably rust in one season. Add to that the high probability that the OQ wanted to put one of those fashionable barn doors in the family room and you have a pretty poorly-done set of instructions. We'd say Dumbass of the Day instructions, ourselves.

¹ Quite likely the most ridiculous pseudonym ever used at eHow.com, even worse then "Filonia LeChat," "Jon Zamboni," and "Vee Enne."

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