Bike Forums - Question about steels?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kontact (Post 20231565)

Most stainless steel is magnetic. The only stuff that isn't is the soft stuff sinks are made of. My stainless refrigerator is covered in magnets.

your refrigerator is stainless steel clad carbon steel. The stainless part is probably less than 0.001" thick.

Whether stainless is magnetic or not depends on its crystalline structure. Martensitic stainless (400 series)is heat treatable, hardenable and magnetic, but you can't weld it. (what you make kitchen knives etc. out of) You'd never want to make a bike out of austenitic (300 series) stainless. It would never rust, but it would be a tank!

Reynolds claim to fame is that they came up with a weldable martensitic alloy. 953 actually belongs to a class called maraging steels.

The previous comment on some stainless steels being magnetic, We had an incident at work a few months ago where some casings on a pump that was supposed to be 316 SS and non magnetic, were moderately magnetic, (about like 302). Since the manufacturer sources castings from off shore we were suspicious. (the wrong alloy would have produced a catastrophic failure). Just so happens my brother has access to a nuclear back scatter, portable, content checker. the castings passed ASME specs for all the major elements, but were high in cobalt. We came to the conclusion that that's what made what should be a totally non magnetic alloy magnetic.