DIY Bifold Doors for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCXXV

louvered bifold doors

When it comes to the world of do-it-yourself projects, few things irritate the staffers at the Antisocial Network more than some yahoo pretending to know a-a-a-all about a topic while writing instructions, yet making a complete mess out of even the most basic information. We're going to look at one such example today; the work of returning DotD Kelly Sundstrom, who blessed the internet with her SFGate.com post, "How to Build DIY Bi-Fold Doors."¹

Sadly, Sundstrom's post was vomited up on eHow before Demand Media began requiring "references" of its contributors, because it would be quite instructive to see where Kelly came up with her idea for making these things. Based on her educational background – "writing" and fine arts – even basic carpentry seems a bit of a reach, much less the craft of building doors. We do suspect that Kelly harvested her material from a British source, given her insistence that her readers use "pressboard" to build the doors. Anyway, on to the instructional portion of her post.

According to Sundstrom, you will make your doors "using basic hardware supplies," whatever that means. Sadly, Kelly seemed to think that you should start by cutting,

"...two pieces of pressboard using a circular saw to measure 18 inches wide, 72 inches long."

Her materials list specified 1-inch pressboard. Pressboard is, as far as we call tell, what Brits call the manufactured sheet product Americans call medium-density fiberboard, or MDF. According to our calculations, each of those "pieces" is 0.75 ft³ of MDF, so the two would weigh about sixty pounds total. We think that's rather heavy for bifold doors, which are usually hollow-core; or, as depicted in Kelly's illustration (reproduced above), louvered, and therefore considerably lighter.

Sundstrom's unfamiliarity with "pressboard" also prompted her to advise her victims (anyone who thinks her post is in any way authoritative) on how to assemble the pair of doors:

"Place the two pressboard side by side on a flat surface. Line the edges up evenly. Place three hinges along the seam where the two pressboards touch, then screw the hinges in place with a screwdriver and 1/2-inch screws."

We like the way what had been "pieces of pressboard" somehow became "pressboards"; though far more interesting is Kelly's ignorance of the holding power of a handful of "1/2-inch screws"! Not only does MDF do a lousy job of holding screws, which is why Ikea uses cam-lock fasteners, a half-inch screw sure as hell will not hold the weight of a 1-inch sheet of MDF.

Finally, Kelly instructed any poor schmucks who are still following along to,

"Screw a track knob onto each end of the pressboards, positioning each knob 2 inches from the corner and facing either up or down, respectively." We know what a "track knob" is, and it isn't what Sundstrom seemed to think. She probably meant "guide wheel," but who knows? Not only that, but MDF is even worse at holding screws on its edges than it is on its faces. No way her plans would work! This piece of rubbish has been kicking around the eHow universe for almost a decade, and it's always been crap. Small wonder our staffer tagged it to be Sundstrom's fourth Dumbass of the Day award, in four different categories. Why is it no surprise that this woman was the Demand Media Top Content Creator for 2009?

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_12200201_build-diy-bifold-doors.html

DDIY - DOORS