Originally Posted by
bobotech
Oddly enough, I have come across quite a few stainless spokes that are faintly magnetic. I use an extremely powerful neodymium magnet that will cause blood blisters if you let it attach to a metal surface with your skin in between. Those magnets seem to even attract stainless magnets but just barely. Like it will cause the spoke to move a bit to the direction of the magnet but won't be able to be picked up by it.
Again, the weak magnetism of otherwise austenitic stainless steels is caused by cold working the metal during drawing and swaging to form spokes. However, a magnet's attraction for these is vastly lower than for standard non-stainless steel spokes and the difference should be obvious.