Online Metals Blog

Star Sailor Energy builds energy generation units of just about every shape and size.

From small back yard lighting units:

To large scale rural electrification towers:

(And yes, they use OnlineMetals Materials!)

The Star Sailor Energy website is pretty informative, and we invite you to check it out.
http://www.starsailorenergy.com/

Mike uses OnlineMetals brass bar and aluminum angle to create Banjo Mutes, in his basement shop.

They have toured the world with musicians from more than 10 different countries. Too cool!

Check out their website www.mikesbanjomute.com for more information!

A great letter from one of our customers:

Hello Online Metals,

I wanted to send you a picture of our Ivanpah Full Race Kite Buggy.

Most people don’t know what a kite buggy is so I will explain. A kite buggy is (normally) a 3 wheeled trike style buggy that a rider sits in and uses a large kite to pull them around. (They’re sometimes referred to a power or traction kite.) There are no motors, no engines…no brakes. Just the rider, the kite and the wind. Power kiting is a relatively new sport to many and consists of a completely renewable carbon free footprint and totally green sport as we use no fossil fuels of any kind. Power kiting is one of the fastest growing extreme sports in the U.S. and can be found on land, snow and water.

Our Ivanpah Full Race Buggy was designed specifically for the extreme conditions of the Ivanpah dry lake bed located appx. 45 miles south of Las Vegas along Interstate 15 on the California / Nevada border. The lake bed is appx. 5 miles wide and appx. 15 miles long and has a surface that is like sandpaper, abrasive for excellent traction but amazingly flat and free from any obstacles which makes it perfect for high speeds. Ivanpah is home to many wind powered functions including the North American Land Sailors Association World Cup (NALSA) and the North American Buggy Expo kite buggy event (NABX). These are the largest wind powered events in North America. The Ivanpah is also the home to the newest land speed record for a wind powered craft, set earlier this year by the Greenbird project land sailor at 127 mph. It is also the home for the unofficial land speed record set for a kite powered buggy at 77.6 mph. Screaming across the barren desert at 50-60 + mph with your backside sitting just inches off of the ground is a rush that can only be imagined by experiencing it….all under the power of the wind.

The kite buggy shown here, and built using Online Metals material, has set preliminary test runs at 69.6 mph. If conditions cooperate, we should be able to break the 80+ mph barrier for a kite powered craft. The buggy pictured is a Chrome Molly & carbon steel frame. We also produce a fully polished stainless steel model. More pictures and information can be found on our website at the address below:
http://www.awindofchange.com/ivanpah.html

Thank you for all your superior support and supply of excellent high grade materials.

Happy Winds!
Kent
www.awindofchange.com

Jeff discovered OLM about 3 months ago and has used our material for several sculptures. This is his latest piece. It stands about 14′tall.

The .5″ dia rods were purchased at OLM. The entire piece was painted with a bronze paint, followed by a patina. The end section of earch arm was made from old computer discs and 12″ dia street lights.

This piece is now in Wenatchee, Washington it’s titled “Celebration in Blue”.

Wendell has been using OnlineMetals products for years.

Every time we visit his website, we recognize a piece of our material, and are pretty impressed with the cool thing he’s done with it!

This week, he shared the new Helm Chair for his boat “Helge.”
So cool!

To see the full project, click here!

Another great letter from one of our OnlineMetals customers…

To: OnlineMetals Staff

Good morning,

I thought some of the people at your company would get a kick out of knowing that your aluminum is getting a LOT of attention on the Internet this morning.

I’ve been building a robotic “Better Mousetrap” as a hobby for more than a year, and bought your aluminum for the case.

We just started sending out press releases at 5pm last night, and it’s already been seen by more than 400 THOUSAND people all over the world by 5am this morning.

Here’s a link to the photos and video:
http://www.telovation.com/articles/better-mousetrap.html

Best Regards,

Jake
Telovation.com
A Radok Company
Scottsdale, Arizona

BikeRod&Kustom is a WebZine devoted to the needs and interests of Bicycle Creators and appreciators of Bicycle Design. They’ve been in business as long as Online Metals. has, and have bending and forging OLM materials into some pretty amazing creations for more than a decade!

We’re always excited to share their projects with the Online Metals. Blog and Facebook community, and so we couldn’t wait to post this e-mail, and the project it describes:

“Hi OLM,

This recent project was made as a Christmas gift for my daughter. It functions as a defensive “Light Weapon” torch. The style is what is commonly called “Steam Punk”, although I prefer “Neo-Nemo”, in honor of 19th-century sc-fi author Jules Verne. All construction materials are from Online Metals.

It’s built around an Endor Star high-power white LED module the diameter of a nickel coin. It mounts three Luxeon Rebel LEDs, each driven by 700 milliamps of current @ 3.5 volts. At this power level, it produces 540 lumens of light, which is bright enough to cause temporary blindness. I used a 1” diameter acrylic plastic half-ball as a magnifying lens over the LEDs. A nice acrylic lens is available to specifically fit this LED module, but I like the funkier beam the half-ball produces, and the look of it is more period-appropriate to the style of the device.

The body of the torch is a length of Brass Tubing (1″ x 0.03″ x 0.94″), which holds three sub-C-sized Nickel Metal Hydride rechargeable batteries rated at 4,200 milliamp/hours. The front bezel is machined from a length of Brass 230 Pipe Schedule 40 1.25″ nom. (1.66″ OD x 0.14″ Wall x 1.38″ ID). As the I.D. of the pipe is slightly larger than the O.D. of the tube, I made a tubular shim to fill the gap, made from brass sheet from an OLM brass sheet sample pack. After annealing the sheet brass, it was easily formed into a smooth tubular shape, which was sweat-soldered to the inside of the bezel. The bezel is held to the tubular body by brass setscrews from an online small parts source, which was also the source of a 1” brass disc 1/8” thick, which serves as a heat-sink mount for the LED module, which produces a fair amount of heat from the heavy current going into it.

The light is activated by a micro-switch from Radio Shack. The decorative push-button is a small plastic “scarab” cabochon from a costume-jewelry source. I separated the scarab from its brass bezel, which I then soldered to the tubular barrel around an elliptical opening. The scarab is glued to the metal actuating lever of the micro-switch.

The torch has two interchangeable rear terminations: a lathe-turned aluminum bullet-shaped “spike”, and a 1” diameter cast-brass hemispherical railing cap, fitted with a brass swivel keychain ring. The brass keys on the ring have sharpened ends, so they can (theoretically) act as a nasty flail weapon. (This is all conceptual, of course.) As the end termination pieces have different inset diameters, I made laminated brass bushings of identical O.D. but different I.D. from the sample brass sheet pack thicknesses, for snug fits.

The torch is secured to the winged scabbard by a matched pair of neodymium “super magnets’. Rotating the torch within the scabbard releases the magnetic attraction. The brass chain is the right length for “over the shoulder” wearing. The leather-covered canister contains other lengths and gauges of chain.

My daughter, who’s also into “Steam-Punk Style” was surprised by the gift, and really likes it.

Regards,
Jim
http://bikerodnkustom.com

Hey, we’ve got a bet going! Less than an hour to reach 200 FB fans! Jump online and become a fan now!

(And if you’re reading this AFTER we’ve made it to 200, become a fan anyway!)

OnlineMetals.com

Promote Your Page Too

No seriously, GO NOW!!!

http://www.facebook.com/OnlineMetals

From time to time, we get a call from a customer who isn’t sure if their 5% discount has been applied.

We don’t break each discount down individually, but there is a way to tell.

Enter your discount in Step 3 of your check out.

Then look for the red text under your order total in Step 4!

Here’s an example:

Here’s a closer look at the text:

As we all know, Festivus (”for the rest of us”) is an important holiday celebrated on December 23rd each year. It consists of three main parts: The Airing of Grievances, The Feats of Strength, and the Aluminum Pole. The pole is unadorned, primarily because Mr. Costanza found himself “distracted by tinsel.”

We are pleased to let everyone know that our aluminum pipes meet the highest Festivus standards and will add greatly to your holiday celebration.