• feature heel
    Architect,  Generic

    Heel Analysis

    ARCHITECTURE Heel Analysis Methods. When I design heels for a truss, I try to not use more wood than I need. Throwing wood at a problem doesn’t always fix things. For example, I have a slider on this heel as the heels are high. The top chord doesn’t specifically need them for stability or deflection. I have a pinned bearing and I can analyze the heel with a few different methods. In these two illustrations the red line represents the analog of the truss. I analyze with a single analog on the heel and my slider is several feet long as the next joint is the web. In the right…

  • Architect,  Generic

    How to make a miter cut

    Here is some simple math if you have the right tool. Trying to miter two angles is not always the easiest task. Let me preface this with I would recommend a Jobber Calculator if you convert from feet-inches to pitches, degrees or other regularly. They are not paid advertising, just the tool I use regularly. If your a math person, you know how instrumental a Casio TI-84 was in school. There is probably a Texas Instruments app for this as well that I haven’t looked into. The other tool I use all day everyday is a piece of software shown below is Mitek engineering. For this example I want to…

  • Architect,  Generic

    Rise and Run

    Vandelay Industries doesn’t architect per se. However, when I’m architecting a roof for my potato loving friends in Idaho, I use a few basic math skills. I got to thinking, I should share a few ideas with Seinfelders and future architects. Here are a few tips if you want to pretend to be an architect. In algebra there is a simple formula for calculating angles of triangles. I utilize this formula almost every day when designing roof trusses. Most all kids in the United States learn this at some point and is usually GED (general equivalency diploma) level of education. In this case today, I want to know how much…

  • Architect,  Generic

    The Architect

    IRONY The Architect. Despite my long career in technology and finance, I’m also an architect for a company in Idaho. More specifically I design rooves all day. Roofies are my thing. It’s a simple job, but someone has to do it and I don’t think they could live without me. Snow in Maine gets heavy and deep and the rooves need adequate structural engineering to withstand the harsh winters. I don’t think this job would transfer well to Egypt or some other climate. I didn’t even ask to be an architect. They said they needed help with Oracle and software development and when I got to the interview they pulled…

  • Generic

    In the beginning… Vandelay Industries

    Welcome to ArtVandelay.net 2.0, I apologize as my inner geek had gotten the best of me and I had changed hosting providers and several portal frameworks and a few languages later here we are. If you’ve ever run a search on the world wide web for Art Vandelay you may have seen references to Seinfeld and a character in that series. A very funny comedy about nothing I would recommend though if you have nothing else to do. I was given permission many years ago from NBC and Sony to change my name to the likeness of the character. This webpage ArtVandelay.net is about my public blog, travel vlog, and…