Three or so weeks ago I was contacted by a lady who’d inherited her grandfather’s entire set of sheet metal tools and has had them in her garage since he passed away 30 years ago. She’s not only wondering what’s what, but would also like to determine how much, if anything, they’re worth. She could very well be prepared to donate all or part of the collection to a museum if somebody was interested.

I’ve uploaded all the tool pictures to a flickr account and there’s 70 pictures (by my bad mathematic reckoning) of all manner of old school sheet metal tools including snips, pliers, calipers, saws, drills, tapes, set squares and a host of other bits and bobs - in fact, you can check the entire sheet metal tool collection out here.

If anybody knows exactly which certain tools are which and/or what they may be worth, please feel free to leave a comment under any of the corresponding photos.

Now I’m not on any kind of cut and nor are we necessarily trying to sell them off. We’d just like to get as much information on the collection as possible.

I also have the lady’s email address for anybody who’d like to get in touch with her personally.

Thanks.

Whilst we don’t tend to do much sheet metal fabrication round our neck of the woods relating to cars and such, we do have the pleasure of having to beat the living daylights out of the odd out-of-shape bus panel that may have pranged a shelter or three. There’s nothing Jasper loves more than to bang merrily away at his bench straightening out a disfigured sharabang door.

But, there appears to be a new form of steel that’s been developed to protect your average car occupant - elastic steel.

The Max Planck Institute for Iron Research and the German Steel Institute have developed a variety of steel that strengthens as it elongates. In the event of a car crash, the steel is ductile enough to absorb impact energy, but remains strong enough to protect occupants.

Called Twinning Induced Plasticity steel, the secret is that the steel passes the deformation energy down its length and to other parts, which also deform. The benefit is that with more area available to share the impact load, there is less that can reach the car’s occupants. The institute mentions using the steel in bumpers and side doors, the most vulnerable areas in a crash.

Besides it providing a safety element to your average driver, this elastic steel could be used pre-production if you’re supplying motors to the likes of Peter Crouch.

Not only do the self-same Innovation Cars lot provide luxury cars to the rich and famous, but, so I’ve been reliably informed by the relative of mine responsible for their online marketing efforts, they’ve managed to score one of only twenty Lamborghini Reventóns currently in the world and are the only place in the UK where you can get your hands on one.

Lamborghini Reventon

So if you’ve got a spare $1,400,000 and you feel the need to buy or lease a Lamborghini Reventon you now know where you can go.

At least you’ll be saving yourself Jasper’s exorbitant panel beating fees should you ever dent the beggar considering it’s made entirely of carbon fiber.

If I had my way then I’d incentivize (can you tell this American language thing is starting to rub off on me?) our clients and customers to get a bit creative and photograph the work they’ve had done for them by Butler Sheetmetal. Then again, if I had my way I’d offer incentives (but obviously not rubbing off too much) to the boys (and girl) back at the workshop to start clicking jobs as they’re progressing and before they leave for their new home.

You obviously don’t have to go all Anton Corbijn and make like you’re shooting a Depeche Mode album cover, as a plain old out-of-focus polaroid will suffice, but if I was judging then I’d be more inclined to hand prizes out to people who’d taken pictures more along the lines of the recycling bin rack above.

But, I don’t have any prizes. I know, boo.

The best I can offer is if anybody has any pictures of work we’ve done for them or would like to take some pictures and pass them along, then I’d be more than happy to link to your company site (or personal site, for that matter) within the body of the post and the anchor text of your choosing.

Now if that don’t get your fingers on the shutters then I don’t know what will.

“If you’ve ever wondered how you get triangles from a cow you need buttermilk & cheese & an equilateral chainsaw”-99% Of Gargoyles Look Like BobTodd - Half Man Half Biscuit

And if you’ve ever wondered how you make swiss cheese out of welded aluminium/aluminum, you’d better have a word with Bruce Gray.

“The Big Cheese #4″ Standing Sculpture (25×29x43) is constructed in welded aluminum. This version includes many intersecting bubbles of various diameters. This is one of the sculptures in Bruce’s series of oversized objects inspired by Claes Oldenburg. It is currently available at $15,000. The “Big Cheese” can be commissioned in any size, and also in steel, stainless steel, or with various patinas.

Tell me you don’t love this.

I got an email yesterday from a young upstart after a spot of sponsorship for himself and his mates to help them build a middleweight combat robot for RoboGames.

I presume he’s not meaning one of these fellas.

As his email goes:

Hello, my name is Trent Brown. I’m a 15 year old Homeschool student. I’m seeking a sponsorship, on behalf of my robot team consisting of 3 additional teammates, to assist toward competing in the 2008 RoboGames. RoboGames (combat event) is a 3 day worldwide robot competition where each team will design and build a robot that has weapon systems, armor, and mobile abilities, with the intention of defeating its opponents (other teams). By competing, the students on our team will receive high school credit, along with experience in engineering, building, and competition.

Should your company decide to sponsor our team, we will place your company logos on our robot and toolboxes, as well we will print your company logo on our T-shirts. We WILL also use other ways to make known that we were sponsored by your company. Our middleweight robot is going to cost around $8,000-$10,000 to build and any amount of money donated will be greatly appreciated.

Now he’s given me permission to post something about this, but I’ll only give out the team email address - teamdeltarobotics@gmail.com teamannihilare@gmail.com - where you can get in touch if you’d like to help out. You can get in touch yourself for a mail address.

I suppose if we could get enough tinbashing types to chip in then it wouldn’t cost a bundle. In fact, as I write this I’m becoming more inclined to drop a bit of hard-earned their way. I might even set them up a blog so we can help them online and keep track of their progress.

Anybody game? I’ll do it if you’ll do it………