Thursday, November 13, 2008

Second thoughts about my table project



I'm beginning to have some doubts about my table project. It has not gone smoothly so far. I poured the top twice because the first mix was too dry. I burned out the Flex wet grinder that I used for my countertops. Then I burned out my other grinder that I jury-rigged to be a wet grinder. Yesterday I bought a new Makita wet/dry variable speed grinder, and it's working great so far. But there are things that in and of themselves aren't deal-breakers but taken together are making me wonder whether it will all work out or not. First, I wanted the forms to be be more precise and have cleaner edges to the pieces. I didn't get my layout right on when I built the forms, and therefore the segments aren't all exactly the same size. But because of the way the forms were made, the pieces fit together perfectly, so it might be OK. I thought the sheet metal I used to form the inner donut would naturally make a better circle than it did, but it didn't, so the donut is quite visibly lopsided. Now that I've polished off the top layer of the table, I'm seeing a lot of small holes left by bubbles in the concrete. I guess that even the second time around I didn't get the concrete mix wet enough. Today I applied a skim coat of epoxy filler to fill those holes and will see what it looks like tomorrow after another round of polishing.

I haven't given up yet, but I'm not stubborn enough to put something I really don't like in my house. Who knows, given the fact that it's made out of concrete, stainless steel and aluminum, it could be a pretty cool outdoor table. Does anyone out there need some patio furniture?

One more point about my medical/pharmaceutical/industrial complex rant... If there were 8901 people taking drugs that cost $100/month for 19 months, the total cost of the drugs was $16,911,900. As a results, there were 109 fewer cardiac events. Therefore, it cost $155,155 to prevent each event. I wonder what the typical cost of a cardiac event is and wonder if anyone did a cost/benefit analysis on the use of this drug.




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