Plate Grooves for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCXLI

shelf with plate groove

It's Monday, and we're in kind of a hurry. Bear with us... Being in a hurry seems to have been  requirement for the freelancers who wrote for eHow.com's content farmers, especially when it comes to facts. Given that repeat offender Nichole Liandi barely topped 200 words for her work (a word we use loosely, mind you) in "How to Put a Plate Groove in a Shelf," it's surprising how little knowledge the young history grad managed to convey to her readers.

Nichole was apparently under the assumption that only display shelves have plate grooves, an assumption that flies in the face of every china cabinet ever sold. Never mind that misinformation, though, it was merely padding to get her introduction word count up to acceptable levels. It's when she got to her actual "instructions" that Liandi's ignorance showed itself.

According to Nichole, a plate groove should be two inches from the back edge of the shelf. That'll probably work, so she got it (more or less) right. After that factoid, however, Liandi's instructions pretty much fell apart. Well, she did manage get the fact that you'd (probably) use a router right, though a dado blade (or molding head) on a table saw would also do the trick. According to Liandi, who claimed to have used a book rather than an online reference (the hallmark of a fabulist), here's how you'd rout the groove:

"Set a router to make a U-shaped groove, 1/4-inch deep. Place the router at one end of the shelf and cut along the line to the other end."

Yup: Apparently Nichole thought that,

1. You "set a router" to a shape
2. When routing, you follow a line freehand.

Both concepts are, to be blunt, bullshit. To rout a U-shaped groove, you will need to use a round-nose bit, not "set the router." As for cutting "along the line," you will need a guide clamped to the workpiece; alternatively you might use a router table and feed the shelf along the fence. Nichole also neglected to suggest a proper depth for the groove... but ¼" should do it... and also neglected to suggest that a "blind" groove that doesn't run all the way to the edges (see image above). But hey: that's Nichole for you!

Such is the dumbassery of a freelancer who has probably never picked up a router; maybe never even seen one in use. It's small wonder Liandi is collecting her fifteenth Dumbass of the Day award. We just wish she hadn't used a pen name so we could find her to send the certificates...

DD - POWER TOOLS