I used to work in a pipe fab shop in Delaware where we TIG welded various exotic metals such as TI, Zirconium, Inconel and various others as well as AL, Stainless etc. for Dupont and other companies in the area.

So I am curious, have there ever been any Stainless bike frames made?

Two types of stainless
300 series and 400 series.
I don't know about 300 series but 400 series snaps under impact pressure. I think the chromium content of the alloy weakens the molucularity of the steel. ie. 440 Stainless makes nice kitchen knives but it isn't worth a hoot for swords.

Stainless (while possibly making for a very pretty bike) would be a terrible choice for a bike frame. It tends to be on the brittle side and relatively weak compared to steel. On top of that, it's more difficult to machine and more expensive.

Well, Columbus had a stainless tubeset in the late 90s. Never heard of any particular issues,but it didn't seem to play well in the marketplace.Waterford currently uses polished stainless lugs rather than chorme plated ones,and possibly stainless stays.

I know about those properties etc. The chrome content is a problem. I was just looking at some sample welds and drinking from my stainless coffee mug and the thought came to mind. A brushed or glass beaded stainless bike frame would look nice.

As some of the others have mentioned, stainless typically isn't as strong as some other steel alloys. That hasn't stopped people from making frames out of stainless: back in the '70s when I was a teenager just getting into bikes a local shop had a high end stainless bike that we would all come to ogle. They were a Crescent dealer, a full-range manufacturer from Sweeden, and the top of their line was a Campy Record equipped lugged stainless racer. Here is a link from CR with an ad for this bike: Crescent Stainless .
None of us found out how the thing actually rode....

I'd imagine a bike made from stainless steel would be heavy.

I needed some stands made in my lab so I asked one of the plant guys to hook me up. The next week I had these two beautiful welded brushed stainless steel stands on my bench. Beautiful... it would look nice in a frame but I suspect... heavy.

you can get that look in ti (sorta).

If you look at the Crescent ad that I link to above, you will see that they claim a weight of ca. 20 lbs. for their stainless bike. That isn't bad for a bike of that era.... Erik "Faglum" Pettersson aparently liked it....

Columbus did make a tubeset called Metax not that long ago. Many framebuilders have hoarded it away, such as Dave Bohm and maybe Brew and Rhygin if they're still around. Not sure why it never hit off to be honest. I guess rust for a properly powdercoated and framesavered steel frame isn't as a big a problem as the naysayers make out, plus, I'm guessing the latest steel alloys are a lot more kick-a®se than stainless.

I've bead blasted and ENP'd a few steel and Aluminium frames, which looks kinda cool. Also looks hellishly like titanium too, which confuses people no end.

Without having the specific alloying percentages handy, it's safe to say that at LEAST 80-95% of the mass of ANY steel is still going to be Iron (Fe). So identical blocks of any two steels are likely to be about the same weight, because they are mostly made of the same stuff. However, assuming what the other guys are saying that SS is much weaker, then the SS bike would have to be beefed up to be as strong as other bikes, which yes will probably mean it's heavy.

How about just throwing a very heavy nickel plating, or hard chrome to the bike?

Well, yesterday I walked into a LBS here and saw a MTN bike frame brushed aluminum with only a splash of red around the integrated head assy. Since I was considering the good looks of welds and etc. when I started this thread a day or so ago I couldn't resist and bought it and transferred my stuff from my old heavy frame. Not road bike nor stainless but the look is what I wanted. Not quite ready for the upgrade to TI for a road bike yet, but leaning that way. I sure like the looks of welded TI!

Yes, it would. But a Ti frame with similar treatment would look about the same and be lighter for the same strength.

I have seen some very nice bike racks made of small diameter stainless tubing. They were light and looked great polished.

C.Itoh/Bridgestone/Kabuki made the "Submariner" which used un-painted stainless steel tubing and cast aluminum lugs, and was marketed in seacoast areas for its rust-resistance. I think this was in the 1970s or 1980s

"stainless steels are defined as ferrous alloys that contain a minimum of 17% Cr for corrosion resistance. Most cast stainless steels are of course considerably more complex compositionally than this simple definition implies. Stainless steels typically contain one or more alloying elements in addition to chromium (for example, nickel, molybdenum, copper, niobium, and nitrogen) to produce a specific microstructure, corrosion resistance, or mechanical properties for particular service requirements."

It's the nickel, copper and moly.

why not polish aluminum, then hang bags of lead off the frame??

Crescent of Sweden made some very nice and light stainless steel bikes
David Bohm, of Bohemian Cycles in Tucson, AZ gives the option if you'd like stainless steel. He does some fabulous lugwork too!
Owned a C.Itoh back in the early 80s and it was not stainless steel.

I think stainless steels are a lot more difficult to weld - the heat is liable to create weakness near the weld although this can be overcome by using a slightly different alloy for the filler rod.

There is another kind of stainless called 17-4 PH. Phil uses this for the axles on thier hubs.

I work in a job shop and part of my job is cutting up raw material for the weld and machine shops. I was told by a machinist that 17-4 is as hard as granite and harder to work with than 300 or 400 series. I doubt you could use that for a bike frame.

By the way I made a seatpost at work out of 304 SS tubing that a welder heliarced for me and it's holding up just fine.

Depends on the heat treat. The nice thing about 17-4 PH is that it's castable allowing for many more manufacturing possiblities. It is very strong stuff but not very corrosion resistant. Still better than plain steel though.

When I worked at the British Aircraft Corporation in the early 60s, we made a high speed research aircraft with the complete structure stainless steel (18% nickel 8% chromium). The parts were joined by puddle welding which was something like spot welding but with 100% weld penetration. It wasnt much heavier than a similar sized aluminum aircraft, because much thinner sheet metal could be used for the same strength.

hmm, so was the stainless used on that aircraft brittle at all? how did it compare to aluminum sheets in terms of flexibility etc?

swords shouldnt be made of stainless anyways, regular old hgh carbon content steel is best