Student Loans & Header

As you would expect, the subject of student loans has been a pretty hot topic in social media lately. This is a post I saw from one of my "friends":

This is my situation in a nutshell. Been paying my loans since 2009. But my numbers are bigger. I still owe $263,000 and they get bigger by over $1400/month (just the interest). $10k makes zero difference, it's almost insulting. 

For me to pay them off, I need to pay $3,500 a month for the next 25 years because I just changed servicers. I'm 50 already and graduated with my second masters degree when I was 37. I don't even make $3500/month. The interest alone is 40% of my take home pay. I'm never paying these off in my lifetime unless I hit the lottery. I'm also never buying a house because my debt to equity ratio won't allow it. So here I am stuck in perpetuity in a rental cycle paying someone else's mortgage.

The only solution for me is if they change the laws and allow them to be forgiven in Bankruptcy. Otherwise I'm screwed.

I left a comment and he replied with an explanation of how the system works. Basically you borrow the money with no real information on what it's going to cost you in the long run - no monthly payment or interest rate, until it's time to pay it all back. Then you're just SOL. While the explanation made sense, signing on the dotted line without knowing the actual amount you're going to have to pay back is in my opinion, just plain foolish. Nothing like selling yourself into debt slavery. And like the case quoted above, a mistake you'll never be able to recover from. 

I started on making the tubes for the header on the jitney project. After considering making some sort of tool to fit the round tubes into the rectangular holes, I decided to go after it with two of my favorite tools, a ball peen hammer and the oxy-acetylene torch. 

The job went easy enough - squeeze the tube until it fit into the flange the thin way, tack it in place, heat and hammer until it filled in the gap. I'm going to cut the tacks loose and then even up the edge of the tube so I can get a nice fit for welding inside the flange.

I've got enough of the larger radius bends to make all six stubs off the flanges but I need to order a couple more of the smaller radius bends to make the remaining bits going into the "collector". I also need to get a piece of cold rolled sheet to make that. I doubt if my local guy will have cold rolled, so I'll have to order that or take a trip north.

The whole operation shouldn't be too difficult, just time consuming. I'll probably need another pair of hands to hold some of the tubes in place. Might have to give Cuzzin Ricky a call.