Online Metals Blog

Scott from Oregon created this custom spice rack, using OnlineMetals Aluminum Tube.

The wooden panels are attached to his pantry door. The aluminum tubes hold the containers in place.

Awesome idea, Scott. We can’t think of a better way to keep spices organized and accessible.

Jeff writes:

“A couple weeks ago when I came in to pick up my aluminum parts, you asked that I send you some pictures of the finished project. Well here it is: A small stereo amplifier. This was my first foray into fabricating my own chassis, so thanks again for being in the local Seattle area and making the cuts I ordered.”

Stats:
Solid state amplifier based on a pair of LM3886 chips
About 40W continuous per channel at 8 ohm load.
300VA toroidal transformer
The 3” X 1.5” copper plate I ordered became a heat sink to keep the chips cool
Solid wiring used throughout to handle high current. Handles 4 – 8 ohm speaker loads.
Cherry-stained side panels

Front panel
Nice and simple. As this is destined to be connected to a pre-amp, I didn’t put on a volume control.

Rear panel
Room enough for more inputs if I choose.

Thanks Jeff. This is a great amp!

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!

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

I know I’ve talked about the amazing time we had at MakerFaire this summer, and all of the outstanding people we met. Today, I got an e-mail from one of them, which I had to share with you:

Hi Amber,

My name is James. We met at the Maker Faire in San Mateo. You asked if I would mind sending you some information on how we use your products. Well, I’ve attached a jpeg to this message. I’m the machinist/rocketry nut on the right. 8^)

That little toy has had several test flights, but the big event is coming up on September 21st. Out at the Black Rock desert in northern Nevada, we’ll be launching this completely amateur built two stage rocket to an altitude of 18 miles above the Earth. It will burn 60 pounds of amateur made propellant in under 12 seconds, and achieve Mach 3.1 (2300+ MPH) at it’s top speed. In addition to the 7 on-board flight computers, it carries a digital video camera, and we’re hoping to get video that will include the darkness of space above the atmosphere, and possibly a view of the Pacific Ocean from Nevada. The bird does carry a GPS based telemetry system, to help locate it after the flight. If the recovery systems work as planned, and the jet-stream stays away, recovery should be well within a few miles of the launch point. (We DO have an authorized class 3 waiver from the FAA to launch this. Getting that waiver wasn’t easy.)

As to your metals in the project, the nosecone tip, the sustainer airframe coupler and recovery attachment bulkhead are all Online Metals 6061 T-6 aluminum. The sustainer motor casing and bulkhead were turned from some 4″ 6061 we bought from you. And there are several parts in the booster airframe supporting the booster motor that were turned from aluminum we purchased from Online Metals, as well as the piston head inside the interstage coupler. That piston forces separation of the stages at booster motor burnout, 3 seconds before the sustainer motor ignites. All of this is controlled by the on-board computers.

I have full confidence in the design and all of the metal parts we used, but we’re not allowed to use all-metal construction. I hope the fiberglass and carbon used in the interstage coupler are up to the task. The booster motor will produce a ton of thrust at start up, and this beast will pull 12 G’s off the launch pad. That’s a lot of pressure on the ISC. Essentially, at launch, that sustainer will weigh over 460 pounds for over five seconds. We’re going to find out if the ISC is up to the task. That’s for sure. 8^)

After the flight, I’ll let you know how it went… Wish us luck!

James,
HOW COOL!!! Thanks for sharing this project! Everyone here at OnlineMetals wishes you the best of luck! Kick some butt, and share a few more pictures when you’ve got em’! We’d love to hear about the flight itself, and everything you learned after your rocket returns from space.

John Page makes some AMAZING guitars.

He’s been an OnlineMetals customer for years, and we know he’s done some beautiful things with our Nickel Silver sheet, so we asked for pictures that we could post on blog.

Boy…did he come through!

For this project, he used nickel silver plate as a full pickguard, hand cut with a Celtic Knot motif, polished to a high gloss.

Here it’s used as a pickup trimguard, with a brushed finish.

This is also a pickup trimguard, but this time overlayed with Abalone shell. The luster of the nickel silver shines through the thin layer of Abalone and the highly polished edge sets off the whole thing.

Here he’s used the nickel silver sheet, again overlayed with Abalone, as a truss rod cover on his peghead.

All of John’s guitars are hand-built and can be seen at www.johnpageguitars.com

Thanks John, these are amazing!!!