Jatoba and Aluminum Coffee Table

My machinist friend Brian and I collaborated on a coffee table for his new place. I ended up reusing the table top from a previous project - the Lathe Table.

The as built dimensions are roughly 24" wide by 48" long and 18" tall. The table top is 1-1/2" thick (8/4 repurposed wood planed to 1.540" thick) and the total weight is about 80 pounds; jatoba is ridiculously heavy. These are the process and final photos.

Initial drawings for the aluminum legs. The idea is for the pins to expand by driving  wooden wedges into the slots similar to how an axe or hammer handle is attached.

Orthographic drawings done in Rhino and Illustrator.

This is the shop drawing. The pins are drafted slightly at the top so they exert enough pressure to hold the leg in place. I need to acquire a photo of his notepad - Brian turned this drawing into what I assume is essentially a G-code equation for the EDM machine.

These next few images are the mock-up leg that Brian produced.

The wedge that gets pounded in is made of jatoba. It's about twice as hard as oak and 1/3 more dense.

Testing the ability of the wedge to expand the aluminum pins.

It worked but in the end the pins got longer, thinner, and drafted (thicker at the top) to provide more ability to expand outwards.

Repurposing the old table top.

Bye bye bad craft.

End grain doesn't glue up well so I added some simple splines. It also lines up the wood better so that you don't waste as much material in the planer.

I added a domino joint (mortise and tenon) just because.

The symbols on there indicate which way the wood bows towards. There wasn't much at all, but if you put opposing pieces next to one another they straighten each other out. The planar I use is 18" wide so I had to glue it up in portions...

... then join the whole thing. I messed up and made the domino joints prior to planing so the sides were off by 1/32" or so. That would require a lot of sanding so later I cut the whole thing in half and did it again.

Cutting the ends flush. The table saw blade has gunk on it from architecture students making models with odd material, lots of not entirely dry glue, and pushing material too quickly/slowly through the saw. More finishing work...

Dual end grain spline joint.

The router fitted with a follow bit; it's essentially a bearing at the tip of the bit that follows a template.

Cutting the ends flush. The shop is used by students so all the blades have gunk on them which leads to burns on harder woods, so - more finishing work.

This one turned out well. The first one was difficult though. 1-1/2" of extremely hard wood is a lot to take off at once.

The material I used for the template was too thin and poor quality so my router bit crushed it a bit and my mortises came out about 15-18 thousands too large - which actually turned out to be okay.

This is a Domino machine made by Festool. They're about $1,000 new... really want one. You can build anything with one of these.

These are the beechwood (similar to oak) tenons that along with glue join two pieces of wood.

This is the result of me cutting the table in half to line up the two halves more closely; it worked out really well.

Re-gluing...

Almost perfectly flush this time.

The corners had to be hand chiseled out to be made square.

I had to flip it over so that the final cuts wouldn't cause tear out on the bottom. This led to cutting 32 (4x4x2) corners square.

This is the EDM (electrical discharge machining) my friend Brian used to cut the tops of the legs... to within "roughly" 100,000th of an inch. (The next seven photos are Brian's).

End milling a taper to the legs. They start out as 2" by 1-1/8" by 18" tall and at the base they're 1-1/8" square.

Just under 0.251", not bad.

The pins are about 1-1/2" long and vary in thickness from 3/32" to 1/8".

I used epoxy on the tops of the legs just to make sure nothing would move then pounded the wedges in. I was very surprised by how well it all worked. They went in easily, flush, and when you grab the legs it's obvious that they're very sturdily attached.

Flush cutting the wedges. I did a first finish coat for some dumb reason... the saw and general mess screwed up the finish so I had to strip and start again.

After stripping and sanding I use a scraper as the final finishing tool. At this angle you can see what it does to the grain. It sort of compresses the grain and leaves it smoother than any sandpaper can.

Since the table will see daily use I opted for a polyurethane finish. Not my favorite but it does protect well. The first three coats were glossy (to bring out the depth of the grain) and the final coat was semi-gloss so that it doesn't look like plastic. I rub it on with a rag, wait 24 hours between coats, lightly sand with 320 grit between coats, and the final finish gets a #0000 steel wooling.

Detail shot of the top of the leg.

Finishing the legs took forever.

Glue and grim...

I ended up putting a coat of poly on the legs so they wouldn't soak in oil from peoples hands.

All the final shots were taken in Crown Hall.

This is a rendering to show how the legs work.

Today My Students Loans Are Due or The Realities of Paying for Architecture Education

I went to a private graduate school for architecture, the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). A three year program that costs a little over $30,000 a year just in tuition. On top of that you probably need $1,000/month to live plus money for model supplies, architectural travel (a large part of your education I might add), and books.

There are three types of loans available:

Federally Subsidized at 6.8% - you don't start paying interest until six months after you graduate. This caps out at $8,500/year.

Federal Unsubsidized at 6.8% - you start paying interest right away. This caps out at $14,000/year.

Private loans at 8.0% - interest start right away. This is what people use to live on and pay the remaining tuition with.

Note: the Obama Administration as of this school year (Summer 2012) got rid of the Federally subsidized loans in order to help close the budget deficit. Also, along with alimony, students loans are not eligible for dismissal if you file for bankruptcy. Basically, you will have to pay them back.

I got lucky in many ways and I owe about $38,000 because I was able to make many large sum payments thanks to a generous wife among other things. If I pay off my loans over ten years my monthly payment is roughly $440, and I'll end up paying $14,500 in interest on the $38,000 I owe. My current income is about $2,000/month after taxes and my living expenses are roughly half of that, so my effective purchasing power will be reduced by half for the foreseeable future. That is, until I get a raise or my ten years is up. Given the state of architecture right now I'd say it's a coin toss.

About 2/3-3/4 of the people from my class have jobs that pay money; many work for free or do not have jobs. For what it's worth less than half of the undergrads have jobs and most of them are not in architecture. An undergraduate degree in architecture at IIT is five years. Most of these jobs are $12-20/hour. After taxes that's $20,000 - $32,000 per year. The average debt for people who were in the three year program is about $160,000. Math time:

If the Federal loans top out at $22,500/year multiplied by three years that's $67,500. $160,000 (rough average just from talking to classmates) with $67,500 deducted is $92,500 in high interest rate loans.

Over a 10 year pay off period that's:
$777/month for the 6.8% loan - $25,715 in interest over the life of the loan
$1,020/month for the 8.0% loan - $42,175 in interest over the life of the loan
$1,797/month total for 10 years - $67,890 in interest over the life of the loans

Over a 25 year pay off period that's:
$469/month for the 6.8% loan - $73,050 in interest over the life of the loan
$714/month for the 8.0% loan - $121,680 in interest over the life of the loan
$1,183/month total for 25 years - $194,730 in interest over the life of the loans

Source for numbers. It's an amortization calculator. If you don't know what that is go learn. It'll be the most important thing you learn all week.

At an average of about $30,000 (probably high) salary after taxes that means the average person in my (three year, the two years students are far better off) class more or less must choose the 25 year repayment plan. If they bring home $2,500/month and $1,200 is taken out for their loans that leaves them with $1,300 to live off of.

$11,170 is the poverty level for a single person in 2012. They're pulling in $15,600 so technically they're not poor...?

To actually become an Architect one must pass seven tests (with a passing rate of about 60%-80% per test) which cost $225 each plus yearly fees and accumulate 5,600 hours of internship to become an architect. Until then you're an intern with a masters degree (Edit: to those who complain about this title, this is nomenclature from the AIA).

Note: The interest calculation is actually quite a bit simpler as I show it here. The majority of the loans taken out start to accrue interest the moment they're dispersed, so much of that money already has several years of compounding 6.8 and 8.0 percent on it by the payback date (Nov. 12, 2012 if you started in the Fall of 2009 for the three year program).

Also, a lot of people on Reddit seem to think this is me complaining or feeling I've been tricked or I work at a bad firm and I'm untalented or something. Nothing could be further from the truth. This post is more just a snapshot of a moment in time of a somewhat unique situation. I know more about grad. student loans at this very moment than about 99% of the population; three years ago that was not the case. Even so I was very aware of my financial decision and its implications. That's why I never took out the 8% loans and paid as much of as humanly possible as early as possible. The larger problem is that it takes increasingly more to get your foot in the door in the field of architecture while the starting salaries remain low. It's essentially an arms race for education and experience where only those with money or who are willing to live as working poor are going to advance. It's less than ideal.

Weekend Reading

Wired explains how large manufacturers test their products until failure and why this is important. I liked that it was essentially the cutting edge battle that's going on at large design and mass manufacturing companies - it's Henry Ford circa 2012.

Scientists think that the invention of cooking led to our ability to have large brains. That is, brains need a lot of energy, roughly 20% of all the food you eat goes to your brain. To support this "expensive tissue"cooking is essentially predigesting your food and allowing you to eat more of it.

Unlike most people who want funding for NASA, equitable taxes, and a strong social safety net, I like guns. Normally I don't link to stuff like this but this is the perfect case where maybe the guy shouldn't have shot, and more specifically this is the sort of incident where in court the shooter gets off because it occurred in his home. But the world isn't black and white and to me the who case seems a little bit like entrapment. It seems like he lured the guy there and was waiting. Everyone can sense it, even his cop dad, but Montana is extremely conservative; hell, the law protecting the shooter is called the Castle Doctrine.

All about wood veneer and terminology for my design friends.

The largest photo of the Milky Way that has ever been made was taken the other day.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics apparently keeps stats on strip club workers. They make a lot more than most people in the medical profession.

The account of a heroin addict during Hurricane Katrina. Just wow.

Scientists have a new theory regarding the best way to look for alien life; makes sense to me. The article references the Wow! Signal. I read the Wiki article... um? It's not conclusive but I mean, damn. Seems to me like somethings trying to contact us.

I really want one of these Float Desks from Human Scale. I saw one at NeoCon and they worked really well. Unfortunately they cost about $1800, and yes I'd build my own top.

I've long had an uneasy relationship with Apple. I both admire their products and design but loath how they cast a spell over consumers who are led to believe that Apple invented everything and their products are the best. In the UK Apple lost a court case against Samsung and was ordered to issue what was essentially an admission of error/apology to Samsung on Apple's website. Apple, of course, did it in a snide way so the judge ordered them to rewrite it and up the font size. Apple... they're like the smart, rich, talented, popular asshole of the tech industry.

Geo-tracking inhalers. The industrial design, the statistics it could provide, and how much it could potentially increase the well being of people afflicted with asthma are large. Things like this have been a soft nudge ever since smart phones became ubiquitous. I can only assume that in the coming years this will become more pervasive and inform countless other aspects of our lives.

An interesting alternative to one person one vote. You buy votes and each time you buy a vote the price increases by the square of the number of times you've bought. 1 = $1, 2 = $4, 3 = $9... Apparently it works well in experiments and most participants like it.