Reply #50: I'm sorry - I'm not going to do this this week.

[AZCat]

I thought I'd have more free time this week but I have had to work on a couple of projects, and I forgot that the NCAA tourney starts Thursday. I'm not going to be able to do anything for this until next week at the earliest.

A recommendation I would make regardless is that you go to a used bookstore and pick up a either a book on statics or mechanics of materials (or both). These texts go over the fundamentals of what forces do to materials and how to model them. There's much more, but those two topics should give you a good introduction.