North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[jhecksel@voyager.net]

Hi all:

Probably more than most want to know:

There are several families of stainless steel.

One family of stainless typically has large amounts of nickel (in
addition to the chromium that gives it "stainless" properties) in
them.  The nickel changes the crystal structure so these steels are
non-magnetic.  Those stainless steels are typically soft, extremely
stretchy and can tolerate the most extreme corrosion and temperature
environments.  They are also more expensive than the straight chromium
stainless steels.

The other major family of stainless steels has little to no nickel but
much chromium.  These steels will hold a magnet.  This family of
stainless steel can be heat-treated if sufficient carbon is present.
Common grades of heat-treatable stainless steels, from softest-to-
hardest are 420, 440A, 440B and 440C.  A subset of the 440 series are
a bunch of exotic aerospace super-alloys that have large amounts of
moly, vanadium, etc added to enhance their elevated temperature
performance.  In general, the fancier the alloy package the harder
they are to sharpen.  The alloys combine with the carbon to form
carbide chunks in the steel....much like gravel stiffens up and
increases the wear resistance in asphalt.


> Yes the magnet stuck to the knife, I didn't know that tip, thanks. I
> just put he same magnet up to my supposed stainless steel large pots
> that I used for cider and wine making and it didn't stick at all.
> They were advertized as stainless but I had my doubts, how can they
> advertise them as stainless like that? What are they?



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