ooooo shiny

March 26, 2011 2:00 AM

Ever made an indie action film and needed something for that epic glass-break scene? How about the blackest black you can find? Want to adjust your boots so that they are mud repellant? Inventables has everything you need - for the budding inventor, busy set designer, or Q in training.
posted by divabat (43 comments total)

My God, it's like The Back Yard Mad Scientist's Supply Shop!
posted by KingEdRa at 2:10 AM on March 26, 2011 [3 favorites]

Hmmm... The bone black pigment doesn't come anywhere near the sheer darkness of my fuligin cloak.
posted by kaibutsu at 2:40 AM on March 26, 2011 [2 favorites]

"Ooh shiny" is right. This site is an exercise in self-restraint.
posted by Phire at 2:40 AM on March 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

dude. Aluminum foam. fucking awesome.
posted by kaibutsu at 2:49 AM on March 26, 2011 [2 favorites]

Woah. There are a ton of conductive fabrics, threads, velcro switch strips... and super bright LEDs, skin conductor switches and things that glow... bendable wood and heat activated motion devices. This Halloween is going to rock.
posted by jopreacher at 2:53 AM on March 26, 2011

I put one of everything in my cart. Please visit my kickstarter page to help me pay for it.
posted by maxwelton at 3:06 AM on March 26, 2011 [8 favorites]

this site fucking rocks. now i need to win lotto.
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 3:09 AM on March 26, 2011

Heh. What's alarming to me is I've already visited every page on that site.

There's another company (the name escapes me) that's been around for a while that is the same kind of resource for industrial designers and inventors, but it also operated like a subscription-based magazine. The subscriptions were insanely expensive but every week or month they shipped a new batch of samples of new materials or other resources. I think it also functioned as a library in that you could request samples of classes, types or applications of materials.

It was designed as a way to stay current with newly available materials, which would justify the really expensive price for a subscription if you happened to be a working industrial designer or a studio/business.
posted by loquacious at 3:16 AM on March 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

I really want someone to take that mud repelling development and start using it to make some sweet, sweet steel toed hiking boots.
posted by ursus_comiter at 3:38 AM on March 26, 2011

Ahhh...Bone Black. My fave go-to black when I'm painting.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:40 AM on March 26, 2011

This is so many different flavours of awesome. My brother's starting university (college to the USAians) this year to study physics. I think I know where to shop for his birthday this year!
posted by jaffacakerhubarb at 5:17 AM on March 26, 2011

This Inventables.com site is pretty awesome.
posted by delmoi at 6:04 AM on March 26, 2011

Oh shit, the post was for inventables.com. I just clicked one of the links (bone black) and was like 'hey this site is awesome!'. I didn't realize all the links were to there. Heh.
posted by delmoi at 6:05 AM on March 26, 2011

suction cup tape! awesome.
posted by delmoi at 6:09 AM on March 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

You know, with that conductive fabric, you could make a lining for a regular hat, and nobody but you knows that you are wearing a tinfoil hat.
posted by idiopath at 6:22 AM on March 26, 2011 [10 favorites]

Sweet.
posted by R. Mutt at 6:30 AM on March 26, 2011

I have the feeling that this is a McMaster-Carr vs. Etsy mash-up… and I think I'm ok with it.
posted by a halcyon day at 6:54 AM on March 26, 2011

eeeeeeeeeeeeeee, I want my kitchen laminated with Super Hydrophobic Surface!
posted by Wuggie Norple at 7:08 AM on March 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

I have the feeling that this is a McMaster-Carr vs. Etsy mash-up… and I think I'm ok with it.

I'm thinking ChemEtsy?
Seriously, this site would turn me into an even bigger hoarder than I am now if had the do-re-mi. My head is spinning with the want. Squishy Magnets!
posted by biddeford at 7:17 AM on March 26, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's funny, all the link title and descriptions read like the masterfully crafted teaser ads from The Johnson Smith Company or the back of a Boys Life magazine ("YOU CAN FLOAT ON AIR"), Like, "Powerless Illuminating Tubing: Illuminates without electricity," which turns out to be glow in the dark rubber. Not that any of these things are really that disappointing upon further reflection or anything, but whoever is writing all that clearly knows how to grab my attention.
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 7:31 AM on March 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is pretty awesome. I'd seen this site before they introduced sample pricing, and I was blown away by the materials available—but frustrated that I couldn't actually buy any of it! Once I start working on some of my art projects again this summer, this might be a really good resource.
posted by limeonaire at 7:41 AM on March 26, 2011

"Hmm, this bend sensor is OK, but very sensitive to vibration, humidity, and miscelanious noise sources"
"That's nothing some marketing-speak can't fix!"

I am imagining a warning beep, similar to the back-up alert on a truck, when one's fly is open.

Related idea: make this into a talking zipper, that instead of the standard zipping sound, delivers a custom audio message. The ones they sell on the site are demo models that all say "Congratulations".

I want my pants to say "Congratulations" when unzipped.
posted by idiopath at 8:05 AM on March 26, 2011 [3 favorites]

At first I thought this was like a real life Acme Catalogue. But then I realized, no. This is where Acme buys supplies.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:17 AM on March 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

Now I know where to send my geekier friends the next time they want to film a 15-second clip from Star Wars, especially if they get an interesting 15 seconds.
posted by immlass at 8:19 AM on March 26, 2011

Cool stuff at absurd prices.
posted by bz at 8:19 AM on March 26, 2011

The prices man. Some of this you might actually be able to find on ebay for cheaper.
posted by Malice at 8:25 AM on March 26, 2011

Some of this you actually might not be able to find more expensively.

Inventables Bone Black: $4.06/oz.
Random Art Site Bone Black: $1.73/oz.

And translucent concrete ($134.50 for a 4x4x0.75 tile)? Wasn't there a hoax about that a few years ago? Is it a real thing now?
posted by spacewrench at 8:38 AM on March 26, 2011

Yes, translucent concrete is a real thing now.
posted by bz at 8:50 AM on March 26, 2011

I agree this is a cool site, but they're sorely lacking in product details. There's no indication of how much rubber glass I get for my $42. It could be 10cc it could be a liter.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 9:00 AM on March 26, 2011

Oh jeez, "bone black" is just Ivory Black, but not made from real Ivory. And this isn't the "blackest black." I've been lecturing photographers about that for years.

There are two darkest blacks.

1. The blackest pigment you can find. You can see it by reflected light.

2. The deepest well you can find (ideally, a deep well with the interior walls painted with the blackest black pigment. It reflects no light, it's an "optical cavity" that absorbs all light rays.

#2 will always be darker. OK, I might as well give you the rest of the lecture. There are two brightest whites.

1. The whitest pigment you can find.

2. The sun, or a "specular highlight" of the sun reflecting off chrome.

That is the extreme range of naturally occurring brightnesses. This stuff is straight out of Ansel Adam's Zone System, you meter for the natural whites and blacks and let the optical cavities or specular highlights go out of the exposure range.
posted by charlie don't surf at 9:06 AM on March 26, 2011 [5 favorites]

What I want to know is where I can get some of this ceramic material.
posted by jedicus at 10:00 AM on March 26, 2011

There are two darkest blacks.


The technical term for it is infrablack. It can be seen quite easily under experimental conditions. To perform the experiment simply select a healthy brick wall with a good runup, and, lowering your head, charge. The color that flashes in bursts behind your eyes, behind the pain, just before you die, is infrablack.
posted by The Whelk at 10:18 AM on March 26, 2011 [5 favorites]

Yes, translucent concrete is a real thing now.

What about transparent aluminum?
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 10:35 AM on March 26, 2011

What about transparent aluminum?

Also real.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:39 AM on March 26, 2011

What about transparent aluminum?

Also real.

AAAAH holy shit I was totally kidding! WTF! Oh my God this is seriously freaking me out, I don't even know why.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 10:40 AM on March 26, 2011

loquacious, are you thinking of Materia?

If not, it would still be of interest to anyone enthused by this site.
posted by cmoj at 4:51 PM on March 26, 2011

It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.
posted by jpdoane at 5:40 PM on March 26, 2011 [2 favorites]

CheeseDigestsAll, are you looking at the same page I am?

4 pound trial kit of Tin cure silicone rubber product developed specifically for simulating ice and broken glass (specific volume: cu. in./lb.: 28.6). 3A:1B by volume mix ratio.

posted by disillusioned at 6:17 PM on March 26, 2011

EEEEK!! I have to have squishy magnets in pink!! And shoes in radiant acrylic!! Or fish leather!! And ingredient impregnated foam for my makeup?! I'm DYING here.

Scientists or whatever you guys are, you are sitting on some serious GOLD MINES!
posted by jfwlucy at 8:30 PM on March 26, 2011

ooo, cool stuff here. Stainless-steel yarn!

It does seem crazy overpriced for the few items that I know of other sources for.
posted by hattifattener at 1:15 PM on March 27, 2011

I've been looking for a source for UV-reactive beads like these for awhile now. If anyone knows of a cheaper source, I'm all ears.
posted by achmorrison at 1:31 PM on March 27, 2011

The technical term for it is infrablack.

Well, there is probably one ultimate black, depending on what cosmological model you use. Color can be expressed by the Black Body curve. Presumably the blackest, darkest conditions would be looking into deep space as the universe expands through the final entropic phases of "heat death" and all matter and energy are dispersed infinitely until there is nothing left but a background temp of absolute zero.

But personally, I like Lamp Black (Carbon Black) even though stains my brushes.
posted by charlie don't surf at 2:06 PM on March 27, 2011

achmorrison, I paid like $4.95 at Michael's craft store for 500 GITD Pony Beads. You should see those bad boys glow when I hit them with a UV flashlight. :7)

MeMail me.
posted by wenestvedt at 8:53 AM on March 28, 2011