Online Metals Blog

Are you tired of placing an order with your favorite metal vendor, (OnlineMetals.com) then having to wait for-evah for it to arrive? Tired of those mad dashes to the door in your 12 year old bathrobe, only to spend 5 minutes questioning the delivery man’s muffled laughter over Sharpie messages that your friends left on your forehead the night before?

Well friends, TOIL NO LONGER. OnlineMetals is proud to introduce the MetalDhruker. The only device that allows you to place an order for metal and plastic online and have it delivered instantly.

As this picture shows, Freemasons have had this technology for centuries! It was only after the release of National Treasure 1 and 2 that mainstream society learned of the government plot to keep it hidden.

Upon its release, the OnlineMetals scientists set out to make the technology available to mass market consumers. Our early efforts were met with abject failure, as each prototype would create a different type of ravioli…but that was it. Then for a while, it would produce paper, but who wants that to come out of a printer!?!

Regardless, it made for a very confusing time, and many, many tequila shots were taken in order to help us figure this problem out. Unfortunately, the tequila kind of dulled our brains a little bit, and we let the project lapse. We did however acquire a pretty strong taste for the worm.

Then we found out from Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), that the internet is a series of tubes, and that somehow trucking was involved:

“And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It’s not a big truck. It’s a series of tubes. And if you don’t understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it’s going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.”

At that moment, we realized that we were going about it the wrong way and thinking of the internet as a truck. We’re just metals people, so we understand trucks. We have trucks. They’re miniature trucks, that we keep around the office to play with when we’re not drooling too much, but ANYWAY, the solution just kind of “clicked” into our heads.

(You see what we did there? It “clicked”, and our motto is “Point. Click. Metal.” ) OK fine, it was really impressive to us during the tequila haze.

Anyway, we have the tubes! …and now we’ve found a way to send metal down those tubes, straight to your device. Need your material anodized? No problem. With our special “Anodization Button,” you can print anodized material.

Even better, we’ve now discovered a source for that rarest of materials, UnObtanium. Need an impossible mix of properties? You’re not alone. With the unobtanium pack, you can print mobius curves in just a few short minutes. (Just be careful, we put a piece of corkscrewed bronze right through the test lab’s wall the other day. Wasn’t pretty!)

Directions for use: The MetalDhruker is extremely user friendly. Shop at the OnlineMetals website using our handy dandy built in monitor, or simply fax an order to yourself, scan it into the MetalDhruker, and GO!

Did you order the wrong thing? NO PROBLEM! Use the optional “tree hugger approved” metal recycling attachment, which puts your unwanted materials right back into the system. (A 72% restocking fee will automatically be debited from your checking account.)

Utilizing at least 5 different levels of pseudoscience, the OnlineMetals team has created a seamless internal operation that will produce metallic results every time!
Even though we’re still in Beta (we think that the hand crank may have to go in the next model year), we think it is close enough to completion that we can release it to the world.
So ORDER NOW!

*Please note that since it is our device, we assert licensing rights to anything you invent as a result of using the MetalDhruker. We also assert that we are not responsible for damages that may or may not result from using the MetalDhruker, either for its intended purpose or for whatever else your gigantic brains cook up. The *MetalDhruker is a registered trademark of OnlineMetals.com, and its subsidiaries, associates, affiliates, second cousins, and otherwise. Products created using the MetalDhruker could be fatal if swallowed, and should not be taken if you are pregnant, nursing, or may become pregnant. (Especially if you’re a guy.) Please consult your doctor, lawyer, and/or babysitter before using any part of the MetalDhruker. Some restrictions may apply.

(Thanks for reading. We hope you got a laugh out of it. Please use discount code APRILFOOLS for 10% off your next order.)

Ok, so I’m Amber, the Marketing Director. You may feel like you know me because I post all the time.

Well, I’m not sure if you know just how cheap I am. I’m a bargain shopper, A customer service NUT, and I notice when price does or doesn’t = value.

So, I have 2 floor lamps. Paid almost nothing for them. They’re great. The glass bowl thingie broke on one of them, and so I ventured out to find a replacement.

What I learned…is that it’s almost always less expensive to buy a new lamp than it is to buy the part to fix your existing lamp! WTF!!! (F in this case means Fluff. No profanity…)

Anyway, how can that be? How can the few few stores that even carry an “IES Reflector Bowl” justify an upwards of $200 for the darn thing? Yes, there are different price points for a variety of styles and colors…but come on…it’s GLASS! And the one I saw was PINK FROSTED GLASS! I love pink…but that thing was fugly, and definitely not worth a C note or two!

How is this rant relevant to OLM? Well…as I mentioned, I’m cheap, and I appreciate customer service.
OLM is a place that caters to that personality. (As well as my love of jeans and 4 legged coworkers)

OnlineMetals believes in taking care of the customer…and offering single pieces, custom cuts, and a number of other ways for people to save money on exactly what they want and no more.

We want to find good service and great value out in the world, so we make darn sure to offer it here!

We also take great pride in geniuses customers like these who take our small quantity metals and plastics…and use them to fix what they’ve got. Instead of just buying something newer.

Consider this an official OLM solute to you guys!

Carpet Shampooer Attachment Repair

The Home Made Barrel Vise

Tool Inserts

A CUSTOM Backhoe attachment!

…and more.

Just a quick reminder that OnlineMetals offers a custom cut option on 99.9% of the materials we sell.

If you need 1.1875 inches of Aluminum Association Channel, we can cut it.

If you need a 4×17.525 sheet of Tread Plate….it’s a snap.

Just pick your product…scroll down…and tell us what length to cut to you.

Is another way that we ask how high, went you ask us to jump!

Hi. This post is going to be a little bit different, and somewhat more serious. Mainly because I’m writing it, and Amber and I have really different approaches to these things. Also, it is because the topic is a little more serious than most.

The current economy has us all scratching our heads a little bit. Well, actually, a lot. Nothing seems to be going right. Everywhere we turn, there is more bad news, and it seems to never end.

I’ll tell you what we’ve seen, though. Our little business really serves about 4 different types of customers:

• Prototype Shops
• Home Remodelers (seriously, have you seen our new Interior Design section)?
• Small Manufacturers / Inventors
• General Purpose Metals Users

Lately, though, we’ve seen a fifth classification that doesn’t fit neatly into these groups. Businesses that are doing everything they can to save cash. It isn’t just a small machine shop. It is large companies that you would recognize immediately. It actually makes sense when you think about it. In better economic times, paying a minimum order, or buying a full sheet when all that is really needed is 2 square feet, wasn’t as much of a consideration.

Now, however, companies are attempting to spend their available cash as wisely as possible, and they’re figuring out pretty quickly what we’ve known all along - it makes little sense to spend $250 to meet a minimum order, or to buy a full sheet or bar, when what you really need to solve a problem can be purchased for $25. Saving $225 on a single item starts to add up after a while, and at the very minimum will make the bean counters happy.

We’re also pretty proud of the breadth of inventory that we’ve been able to offer. With over 9,000 separate items, we’re starting to approach the area where if we don’t carry it, it isn’t made. Not only will you save money, you’ll save time, because pretty much everything you need can be found in one place.

So check out the website, or give us a call. We’ve got the material you need at a price that you can afford, and the service levels to back it up. When the accountant comes to talk about how much less you’ve spent, you can just tell them “it’s my little secret”, then smile quietly to yourself.

And fear not - Amber will be back soon with pictures of whatever else our genius customers have come up with this week!

Who says it’s not romantic? Jewelery is romantic, and it’s made out of metal. Precious metal, but metal none the less.

Well…we noticed that there are a number of “Traditional Anniversary Presents” that have to do with products we sell. Here they are:

Sixth - Iron

Seventh - Copper

Eighth - Bronze

Tenth - Tin, Aluminum

Eleventh - Steel

Twentyfifth - Silver

So now you know…

Looks like Amber has decided to do some bribery of the ol’ Art Department recently. They were under specific instructions that until we have shirtless equality in this nation, clothed pictures of all illustrative pictures are required. I find it highly discriminatory that she’s allowed to call up pictures of “shirtless Matt”, and I am not allowed to drop in pictures of “shirtless Megan”.

This is as close as we’re going to get. We still like our jobs. - Art Department

But that’s about as far as I can take that particular rant. Let’s work on a different one. Metal. It was pointed out that in the movie “Fool’s Gold”, Shirtless Matt finds a beer can with a metal detector, but that this shouldn’t work, because metal detectors don’t pick up aluminum.

Au Contraire, mon frere

I’ve done a lot of research on this, which translated to reading Wikipedia is the blogger’s best friend.

Even better is YouTube - somebody made a metal detector using nothing but an AM Radio, a pocket calculator, and some scotch tape:

McGyver Lives!

Basically, a metal detector works by a) creating an oscillating magnetic field in a coil, and b) measuring any variance in that magnetic field when it passes over an object. While it is common knowledge that most metals are to some extent conductors of electricity, it is not as well known that each metal has a different influence upon a magnetic field.

Here’s the funny thing. Metal Detectors are not limited to finding only magnetic items. They also work on all types of metals, including Aluminum, Stainless, Copper, Brass, and Bronze, hence the name. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a Plastic detector, so our offerings in that area may have to remain unlinked-to. Yeah, like that’s going to happen

So, as implausible as it may have seemed, it is perfectly reasonable that the metal detector in the movie picked up a beer can, regardless of how cheesy the movie actually is.