Originally Posted by WorldWind
I did change your wording “physical means” to the more physics text correct “Mechanical means” and didn’t feel it was necessary to point it out to every one, but since you mention it.
In changing the wording you have shown that you don't understand what I meant. Mechanical means can mean physical means during separation of materials to obtain the components. For example, using forceps to remove pepper from a salt and pepper mixture. But in a chemical sense, physical means are any methods that don't require the breaking of chemical bonds. In the salt and pepper example above, that would mean adding water to remove the salt and leaving the pepper behind. The salt could then be recovered by evaporating the water. For steel, this could mean resmelting it to remove the added materials. Not being in the business of regularly recovering stuff from molten metals, I'm not sure how to do it but it could be done with physical methods alone.
You are thinking physics and I was talking about the physical world - not physics.
Originally Posted by WorldWind
Just to be sure I’m not misleading any one I am not a metallurgist by trade it was just one of the rungs on the academic ladder oh so many years ago.
For all of the rest of you that are reading along, I hope you are having as much fun as we are.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, I am arguing on the side of proper naming conventions and wanting to refer to things as to how they are used, and he is arguing on the side of the nature of things and wants to call a jack a jack, regardless of how many eyes are showing, and no mater whether it is in a bridge deck or a poker deck.
The naming conventions for iron alloys are not universally applied to all alloys. Steel is just a short hand word applied to iron solutions. You could just as easily call 316 stainless steel, 316 stainless iron. Iron alloys are the only metal alloys that I can think of where you don't use the name of the base metal. Aluminum, titanium, gold, silver, zinc, copper, etc are all refered to as the base metal and usually a number for the grade. You certainly wouldn't say that 7075 aluminum isn't aluminum would you? A Specialized M4 frame is said to be an aluminum frame eventhough it would more properly be called a ceramic reinforced aluminum matrix. It's not even a solution but an heterogeneous mixture of metal and boron fiber. But we still call it aluminum. 14 carat gold isn't called anything other than gold even though it has been alloyed with other metals to improve its strength. It's still called gold.
Originally Posted by WorldWind
So here you have two guys that both love to play devils advocate and are probably both laughing while standing and sprinting for the line, I know I am.
Every discipline has it quirks and preferences and magnets do mostly stick to stuff made from ferrous metals except for, ta-dah Stainless steel.
Magnets stick to some grades of stainless steel. Grades with more nickel in them (as mentioned previously) are not magnetic. Others are. Try sticking a magnet to any appliance that has a stainless steel cover and you find them all magnetic. They all have low nickel contents.
Originally Posted by WorldWind
The elite forces use survival knives that by specification are to be non magnetic so their options are stainless steel a poor choice and magnesium a really poor choice. I think mostly they chose mag because its so much lighter and they don’t care that it wont hold an edge because they never have to cut any thing with it.
And what, exactly, does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
We are really veering off course now
Bottom line: Yes, you can wash your bike with detergent (if the original poster is even still hanging around). Dry the bike and relube the chain and any other bits that have iron in them (aka steel bits). Don't let water sit on these bits too long or they will rust, just like any other iron bits (aka steel bits) would.