Holes in Trees for Geometry Dummies

hole through (small)  tree

Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote, "Theirs was not to reason why / Theirs but to do and die."¹ It's often misquoted as "Ours is not to reason why," and that's why we thought of it today: that phrase might as well have been the motto of the freelancers who contributed to eHow.com. Take, for instance, the HomeSteady.com content scribbled down by Damon Koch; a little something titled "How to Drill a Hole Through a Tree."

Forced by Demand Media, parent of eHow.com, to provide an introduction, Koch came up with this rather inane reasoning for what seems a rather bizarre task:

"One reason to drill a hole through a tree may be to run some sort of line or piping through it."

Most people we know would just go around the tree... but apparently we aren't Damon. No, he went into some detail about how one might perform this particular operation. Damon's problem? It's a safe bet that he just used something he found about drilling into a tree and "expanded" it to drilling all the way through.

Koch was apparently smart enough to know that any bozo with a drill can make a hole all the way through a small-diameter tree, so he went straight to the large-diameter case. His problem was that Damon failed to consider the geometries involved. After all, as he himself said,

"...you must drill the hole from both sides and the two holes must meet just right to form one continuous hole."

True dat. But as anyone who has ever tried something like this could tell you, it's much, much, much easier said than done. Heck, it's hard enough to do on a square post, like a 6-by-6! As for Damon's suggestions? His instructions ain't gonna work: Mark the desired spot for the hole on one side of the tree... Measure from the ground up to the location for the hole and the distance from each side of the tree using a tape measure. To account for the curvature of the tree, hold a straight edge against the sides when you measure. Locate the spot on the other side of the tree using the measurements you took from the first side... Install a long wood bit into the chuck at the end of an electric drill. Hold the drill at a 90-degree angle to the tree [32 additional words on how to hold the drill]...  [48 words on how to operate the drill] Drill a hole from the other side of the tree...

We freely admit that we have no idea what his STEP 2 (measurement) actually means. With the exception of "Hold the drill at a 90-degree angle to the tree" – which ignores the fact that you must dill in precisely the same orientation on both sides, and "at a 90-degree angle" does a lousy job of specifying orientation to a cylindrical surface – Koch failed miserably at helping some poor schmuck line up the drill on the two sides.

And while we're at it, professional arborists say that you should immediately flood the hole with a wound dressing to prevent disease and insect invasion. Guess our Dumbass of the Day isn't an arborist...

Oh, and by the way, there are places where you can buy (or maybe rent) a 25-inch drill bit...

¹ The Charge of the Light Brigade, 1854

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