Making Table Legs for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCVII

broken table leg

We long ago learned that during the "information age" more than a little of the information you get is... suspect. Kindly note that we aren't talking Russian bot farms pushing fake news (although that's a heckuva problem); no, we're talking about greedy freelancers pretending to know all about a subject they'd never heard of before or telling you "how-to" instructions for something they've never done themselves. Though there are a lot of sources of such misinformation, the site eHow.com has always seemed to be the mother lode of such dross. That's where we found repeat DotD Owen E. Richason IV pretending to know "How to Make Sturdy Table Legs" (it's now at HomeSteady.com). Here's a hint: he didn't.

The in-the-know woodworker would have a lot to say about such important points as the cross-sectional dimensions of the legs and the method of attachment. Suffice it to say that, unless the table in question is very small and will never support much weight, the legs will have to be attached with devices designed for that purpose. That pretty much precludes the favorite attachment method of eHow's clueless contributors who, like Richason, think you should use... "L-brackets... and screws." Duh.

Of course, Owen was already out of his depth, citing as references a couple of professionally-written manuals that, you can be damned certain, never told their readers to,

"Purchase four 2-inch-by-2-inch lumber beams from a lumber retailer or home improvement store..."

... to use as legs. "Beams"? Whaddanass. More to the point, when you are making legs for a table, you do not,

"Measure the height of the table with a tape measure, then measure and mark the 2-by-2 lumber beams to cut to that height."

How you can measure the height of a table with no legs escapes us, not to mention that Owen neglected to account for the thickness of the table top in his "measure and mark" step. Plus, there's that "beam" crap again... And then it comes to attaching the legs? Check this rubbish out:

"Squeeze glue onto the top of each leg, then place each legs [sic] into the four corners, fitting tightly against the table top skirt... fasten L-brackets to the legs and skirt with a screw gun. Fasten two brackets to each leg. This, along with the positioning against the skirt and glue, will make the table legs very sturdy."

Only glue the top? Why not the sides that contact the apron (not the "skirt"). And we'll leave it to our readers to decide whether a screw or four driven into two sides of a 1½-by-1½" piece of pine is gonna hold. Hint for Owen IV? It won't.

Never mind that Richason's choice of cheap 2-by-2s would look like crap on any table more than 18 inches high or 36 inches long; the notion that his directions would make something "sturdy" is utterly ridiculous. Utter ridiculousness is why Owen IV is our Dumbass of the Day again... for the eleventh time. First time in furniture, though!

DDIY - FURNITURE