Homemade Templates for Dummies

cabinet hardware template

If you read through eHow.com content in its original form, before it was niched, you might notice that the contributors writing about DIY jobs often cited print books as the sources for their "work." If, however, you read through the freelancers' posts, you'll quickly realize that no professional would ever write up the instructions you find there, so you're left with two options: either the freelancers did a really bad job of rewording, or they made everything up and just claimed to have found it in a book. We're inclined to believe the second of John Walker and his eHow post, "How to Make a Template for Cabinet Pulls."

From the get-go, we were suspicious of Walker, who's already a three-time winner of the DotD award. For starters, John informed his readers that,

"Expensive templates are available at hardware stores, or you can build your own template out of scrap pieces of thin wood."

We would not call five to eight bucks "expensive," ourselves, especially given that such a template is usable for a wide range of drawer and/or door sizes and has the added advantage of being precise – a feature not likely attributable to Walker's version. 

According to John, you should,

1. "Measure and cut two pieces of 1/8-inch-thick plywood with a circular saw to 4 inches long by 3 inches wide... Cut three 1/2-inch dowels to 4 inches and two dowels to 2-1/2 inches..." – Like many an eHowian, Walker seems constitutionally unable to imagine cutting with any other kind of saw...
2. "Spread glue on one edge of each of the 4-inch dowels. Press one 4-inch dowel onto the first sheet of plywood with the 4-inch edges flush..." –  Ummm, John, dowels are round. Consequently, they don't have edges...
3. "Attach the other two pieces in the same manner on the second piece of plywood, with the 4-inch dowels attaching to opposite sides of the same edge, creating a T-shape..." – Does this moron have the slightest idea what he's saying? We think not...
4. "Spread some glue across the face of the 2-1/2-inch pieces. Attach the pieces to the second sheet of plywood in the same manner as described in Step 3..." – Wait, what? Another "second sheet of plywood"? And how does doing that make a template, anyway?
5. "Remove the clamps after the glue has dried..." – Well, sure...

According to Walker,

"The basic template is an L-shaped template for cabinet doors and a piece of wood with a lip for drawers."

Besides the facts that almost no one has ¹⁄₈-inch plywood lying around (it's expensive, too) and that dowels don't have "edges," those aren't templates. A template would include some sort of "drill here" marking, or two if the pull is a strap instead of a knob. Based on that alone, we're pretty certain that Walker went to MSU – Make Shit Up – to study cabinetry. 

Whatever the case, John's collecting yet another Dumbass of the Day award...

DDIY - CABINETS