Woodworking Instructions for Dummies

Trapezoid Box

Our staff woodworkers, and we have several, are generally appalled at the level of bogosity they find in woodworking projects. The writers demonstrate their ignorance not only of technique but of even the most basic tool choice and usage. One of the most galling features of the eHow.com freelancers is their insistence on calling for the use of a circular saw, regardless of the project. Today's nominee, one Roger Golden, is a case in point: witness his "How to Build a Wood Trapezoid Box" at OurPastimes.com.

We knew right away that Golden wasn't hip to the project when he claimed, right up front in his introduction, that,

"Best of all, building one does not require any knowledge of geometry or calculation for the angles involved."

Yeah, sure... truth be told, Golden's instructions are so clumsy that we went back to the original eHow post in archive.org's Wayback Machine. We thought that perhaps Leaf Group had omitted some steps when porting the content to its new home, but no: it's all there... Here are a few of Roger's problems. First, he wants you to use 1⁄8 th-inch plywood. You know you can't get that stuff except by ordering it from a craft shop, right? We mean, people use it to make dollhouse furniture! Second, there's this cogent instruction: "Measure half an inch from one edge of the oak board. Mark a line all the way along the length of the board. Set the circular saw to a blade depth of 1/8th of an inch. Cut along the line, with the blade between the line and the edge of the board."

OK, we read that three times: it looks like Golden wants his readers to rip a ¹⁄₈-by-¹⁄₈ dado on a chunk of oak... with a friggin' circular saw! Has this idiot ever heard of a router? A table saw? Golden then delivers some of the most ambiguous, confusing instructions we've ever seen! We read them multiple times, and still can't figure out what this moron is trying to get people to do:

"Place the cut plywood over the piece of oak so that the long side lays on top and one corner of it lines up with one end of the oak board. Mark the board on both sides of the plywood. Miter cut both lines with the saw blade "outside" the line, or on the side between the line and the end of the board."

We think – but we aren't sure – that Golden wants you to mark the angle of the cut using a piece of plywood that's already been cut to a trapezoid shape and then miter it. The  obvious problem is that you need to know the miter angle to set the saw... maybe a protractor would help (Roger didn't include one in his materials list).

The rest of the instructions compiled by our Dumbass of the Day are every bit as stupid, although none are as dangerous as his saw suggestions. Still, this one goes down as monumentally moronic!

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