Awesome Metal

This steampunk chameleon won’t blend into its surroundings, but it does look amazing. The 745-piece stainless steel, iron, and copper model has numerous articulated joints for posing, and its metal parts have a rainbow heat-treated finish. The finished lizard model measures about 10″ long.

Random Hands dug into their toolbox in search of the right screwdriver – not for loosening screws, but for remaking into a flashy gold-plated bolt-action pen. Rather than melting down the driver’s shaft, they drilled out its solid center, making way for the pen’s refill and mechanism, then followed that with texturing and plating.

Industrial laser cutters can slice through steel, but they leave behind bits of metal called slag on their work surfaces. While placing materials on support slats helps, there’s still a mess to clean up. This slat cleaner from TRUMPF offers a satisfying way to remove that debris. We want something like this for our BBQ grill.

We’ve seen lots of organizers for tools, but they’re mostly pretty boring to look at. Garage Junky Store sells storage units handcrafted from diamond plate aluminum for a shiny and substantial look. They make cordless drill holders, shop towel holders, trash cans, broom holders, document holders, and more.

Is your finger flick underpowered? Worry no longer! Thanks to The Q, there’s now a solution for weak finger flickers. The maker designed and fabricated a metal cover that gives his middle finger an extra boost of power thanks to a spring-loaded mechanism. This must be killer for paper football games.

As impressive as large-scale milling machines can be, compact machines that can create intricate parts are equally fascinating to us. In this clip, Bantam Tools shows off their Desktop PCB Milling Machine as it carves a miniature topographic map of Washington’s Mount Rainier out of a cube of aluminum.

Metal Wall Games sells a variety of popular board games you can mount on your wall. This 32″ x 23″ metal Scrabble board lets you and your friends play the classic crossword game vertically. The set includes 100 magnetic game tiles, a chalkboard for tracking scores, and a burlap tile pouch.

Most axe heads look pretty similar – a thick, wedge-shaped piece of metal with a sharpened edge. But The Metalist wanted to build something a little different and set to creating a functional axe that looks like a human hand. This thing can dish out a serious knifehand strike. Karate chop!

Andrey Kazantsev of Dirt Customs makes amazing low-polygon-count metal animal sculptures. Watch as he welds together a wonderfully pointy Doberman sculpture from dozens of pieces of precision-cut metal. He ships internationally, and his contact info is on his Instagram page. That giant panda sculpture blew our minds.

Scott & Heather of Scavenging Metal create amazing art inspired by pop culture. One of our faves is this steel cassette tape that’s five times larger than the real thing. We love the details like the ball-bearing reels and tape made from chain. Oh, and next Halloween, we’re totally going with their propane tank jack-o’-lanterns.

Hallsen’s 60% mechanical keyboard comes with keys made from stainless steel. The switches are designed for responsiveness and have full n-key rollover and anti-ghosting tech. Each key has RGB backlighting with 15 lighting effects to choose from. It connects wirelessly via Bluetooth 5.0 or wired via USB-C.

Mechanical engineer Kiyoshi Adachi created this wonderful work of kinetic wall art which features a tiny metal man who turns a crank, setting into motion a ballet of spinning gears and dancing rods. Those elliptical gears are especially cool.

As we’ve seen several times in the past, metalsmith Shurap likes to make Damascus from various metal hardware. This time out, he used hundreds of skinny fishing hooks to make a knife. The fine lines of the hooks resulted in an interesting sort of crackle pattern on the finished blade.

Iron fences are typically made by shaping and welding together multiple pieces of metal. But this factory uses a technique where entire fence sections are cast in large molds, with multiple workers pouring in molten metal to fill in the complete pattern at once.

The accessory design experts at Craighill present their first folding knife. The Rook is a minimal pocket knife made entirely from metal. It has an SV35N steel drop-point blade, a one-handed flipper mechanism, and a frame lock. Available in stainless or tri-color with half-brass/half-stainless handles and a black PVD-coated blade.

Need to work on your pocket knife or other small items? This metal tray from BDKtools provides the perfect spot for maintenance. It’s CNC milled from a single piece of aluminum, anodized in black, and lined with rubberized cork. It’s got a large work tray, three smaller parts trays, and holders for a bit driver and bits.