Online Metals Blog

As you may have read in our newsletter, our Affiliate program has been a big part of OnlineMetals growth. We’ve got some great relationships with companies across the globe.

We’d love to increase our affiliate relationships, and so we’ve decided to hold our first Affiliate Referral Promotion. Get 10 companies* to join our affiliate program, and receive an iPod Shuffle.

The contest runs until October 1st, and everyone in the OnlineMetals network is eligible. If you’re not yet an affiliate, sign up…and you’ll be 10% closer to your iPod.

The person who refers the most new affiliates will be rewarded with an 80GB Video iPod Classic.

*Referred company websites must be relevant to OnlineMetals customer and affiliate base. Blanket networking sites and fake/temporary sites created to win an iPod won’t count.
*To appease Apple lawyers: Apple is not a participant in or sponsor of this promotion. They are in no way associated with OnlineMetals, and aren’t liable for anything we say in our free advertising of their product.

Oh, now that all of that legal mumbo jumbo is out of the way…let me just remind everyone that the affiliate program… is awesome in spite of the iPod contest! Why? Because you do practically nothing…and earn…

I wanted to give a quick shout out to my friend Dave who offered to deliver coffee to me from his office in Bellevue. We agreed that the coffee could be poured into his computer, sent through the internet, and delivered to the coffee cup waiting next to my tower.

Is this possible? Yes, because the internet is a series of tubes.

Thanks Dave, this coffee’s got byte!

Please check out OnlineMetals new Decorative Stainless Steel Sheet.

We have 5-WL

6-HC Honeycomb

And 6-WL Wavy

Pick your thickness, place your order, and send us pictures of what you create!

Oh…the 5-WL and 6-WL also come in ALUMINUM

Rich came in today to show us a brass oil valve that he machined out of our 360 Brass Round Rod.

It will go onto a 1915 Flying Merkel Morotcycle.

Here’s a 1911 Merkel.

Thanks for bringing this in to show us Rich. Nice work!

I was on a call today, when a man in a captain’s hat walked in to say hello to our IT guy. We have lots of long time customers that visit, so I smiled, and continued my call.

Suddenly pandemonium! Warehouse guys are coming in to tell me about the customer project outside, our warehouse manager is asking for my camera, the shipping guy says to me ”Dude, Josh made A CAR out of our materials!” and I’m thinking “Out of town coworker, I love you…but get off the phone! I wanna go outside!!!”

And then I did…and this is what I saw…

HOW COOL IS THIS!

It’s got a functioning periscope, rudder, snorkel, turret, top hatch, 2 side port holes, a radio, (That can, and does communicate with boats in it’s range) a really awesome computer screen, (that also works, but I missed it’s purpose because I was too busy being amazed by the car’s awesomeness.) AND MORE

I’m pretty sure the screen has something to do with the radar. Yeah, did you see it! RADAR mounted to the top. So cool.

I’m in love with my Prius , but Josh definitely takes the award for coolest car!

Thanks so much for braving Seattle’s Briney Deep to show us your creation.  We’re all looking forward to your next one.

OK, so we’ve mentioned that we’re all shop class failures…and seriously, we are.

But that doesn’t mean that some of us aren’t SERIOUS nerds! Since joining this company, I’ve learned to code in html and know more blog terminology than I’ll ever ever ever want to know.

But let’s get back to where I was going with this…

My husband just sent me a “Nerd Test,” and as part of my IMPOSSIBLY STRONG WORK ETHIC and commitment to using my office time wisely, I took it!

I would’ve cheated…like I do on most tests, but found myself genuinely curious about the result.

Has the nerdyness I’ve surrounded myself with rubbed off?

Am I a full on nerd?

..or still the self described ”nerd adjacent.”  I had to know!

So here are my results, and the link to the test.  TAKE IT, and let us know how nerdy you are!!! 

32% scored higher (more nerdy),
1% scored the same, and
67% scored lower (less nerdy).

What does this mean? Your nerdiness is:

Low Ranking Nerd. Definitely a nerd but low on the totem pole of nerds.

and remember…

THE PITTSBURGH STEELERS

Chris didn’t have to work hard to convince us that the Pittsburgh Steelers should be the official OLMteam. Why? Well…we might be in Seahawks territory…but we don’t sell birds!

We sell STEEL!!!.

And so it seems obvious who our team should be.

The Steelers logo is based on the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) Steelmark logo. Created by U.S. Steel Corp., the logo contains three hypocycloids and the Steelers name.

It can be seen on tanks…

cause they’re the bomb!?! (Oh…that was cheezy.)

In pink, on the office wall of our male friend.

(Yep, the OnlineMetals Director of Marketing painted that, with help from the two other faceless OnlineMetals loving people. Faces blurred as part of the “Steeler’s Logo Painters Protection Program.”)

and on the outside wall of the OnlineMetals warehouse!!! 1183 W Ewing, Seattle.

OK, that’s an obvious lie…but you can find us. And a huge selection of metals, plastics, and composits. Check us out….and Go Steelers!

They’re our patrons, we’re their patrons, Sypolt’s the first to be a patron there, and we ALL love to patronize Sypolt!

What the heck am I talking about? Norm’s Eatery and Ale House. An awesome little haunt in Fremont, Washington. (Seattle neighborhood.) Good food, great people…and you can bring your DOGS!!! Too cool.

BJ, Diogi, and Bella drag OLMers there regularly…

Especially now that it’s got an outdoor eating area, with a custom fence made from OnlineMetals STEEL.

It was nice before…

But it’s gorgeous now…

Thanks to Norms for using our product at your restaurant, being a great restaurant in general, and for those of us watching the Fremont Faire Parade from behind your fence…a barrier between us and the hippies. (Said the girl in the hemp halter top next to the man in a kilt.)

Anne River Calls uses our plastics to create his duck and goose calls. Here’s a picture of one of them, along with the company’s contact info.

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.