Picks made of stainless steel might rust! - Pacification

[Engineer]

Stainless steel will still rust, if it is exposed to ordinary steel, such as filing, or grinding with wheels that have been used on ordinary steel, or even finishing with steel wool.

The problem is that very fine particles embed themselves into the surface and rust, that in turn starts the stainless steel rusting. A through cleaning will help, but there is still a chance that your picks will rust.

Pacification of the surface of the stainless, so it won't rust is done with dilute nitric acid. This is getting harder to get after 9/11. You can use citric acid, but that is hard to get as apparently it can be used in drug making. You should still be able to get it from some specialist food suppliers as it is a common flavouring.

In the US, you might be able to get them from United Nuclear, or a friendly engineering shop might help?

There is some good info on this webpage, for sculpters who use stainless:

http://www.finishing.com/192/03.shtml

[raimundo]

There are many stainless steel alloys, some have no iron, most have some iron, if you rub carbon steel on these ones, it can and will start a rust problem. I have a friend who works on reverse osmosis machines that purify water, They even have stainless tools to work on these.

[Safety0ff]

There are many stainless steel alloys, some have no iron, most have some iron, if you rub carbon steel on these ones, it can and will start a rust problem. I have a friend who works on reverse osmosis machines that purify water, They even have stainless tools to work on these.

First time I've heard that there exists iron-less stainless steel.

I just use some metal/aluminium polish on my picks, that is supposed to help keep rust away.

[Jaakko]

There are many stainless steel alloys, some have no iron, most have some iron

If it has no iron, then it is not steel. Steel is iron with 0.05-2.06% carbon. Stainless steel by definition is an alloy of steel containing at least 10% chromium.

[ratyoke]

I think I have seen this a couple times with stainless I had been milling but never finished what ever I had been making.

[barbarian]

There are lots of types of Stainless steels. I've never heard of one with no Iron in it.

Nice Wiki on it..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stainless_steel

[justbegginin]

Picks made of stainless steel might rust!

Because everyone leaves their picks outside.

[Safety0ff]

Picks made of stainless steel might rust!

Because everyone leaves their picks outside.

<sarcasm>
Because only the outdoors are humid, And a toolbox is completely dry and won't rub rust on it (beginning the rusting.)
</sarcasm>

[raimundo]

OK that was probably wrong, I don't know where I got the idea from, I remember reading it somewhere, and of course, if you have a drawer of mixed source kitchenware, you can take a magnet, and find that some of the stainless will attract, some quite strongly, while others have a weaker attraction, and some has no easily discernable magnetic properties.

[zeke79]

I had a loather walther "choked style" 10-22 target barell. By choked it means that in the stock is was the normal sporter profile barell but after the end of the stock it was a 1" bull barell. It was made of some type of stainless steel that would rust but you had to handle it alot with wet oily hands for it to happen but it would do it. I don't know anything about the metallurgy of the barell itself and no longer own it as I ended up "shooting it out" after many many many 5,000 round cases of winchester super-x power points. I figured up once that it had around 100K rounds on the barell and the receiver was used before that so the bolt had actually wore quite a bit into the receiver. The only one of these barells I have left is a standard blued one that has just as many rounds of the same ammo on it but it still holds right there between .25" and .5" groups at 50 yards so I keep it for my small game hunting rifle even though the receiver on it is really worn too.

Again, my point is that some stainless steels will rust. If I recall correctly as it has been about 3 or 4 years since I had that barell, the rust didn't appear the same as rust on a blued barell. I just seem to remember that the rust might have appeared different.

[Safety0ff]

OK that was probably wrong, I don't know where I got the idea from, I remember reading it somewhere, and of course, if you have a drawer of mixed source kitchenware, you can take a magnet, and find that some of the stainless will attract, some quite strongly, while others have a weaker attraction, and some has no easily discernable magnetic properties.

The brass colored pins in my Brinks shrouded are slightly magnetic (or atleast when I put them on my hdd magnets.) When I put the steel pins on it the attraction was so strong that it would send the others flying around the room!

I guess I'll have to take a magnet with me if ever I go shopping for cutlery so I discern the steel from the pot metal.

[ratyoke]

Some stainless alloys are non magnetic. I don't know why and I don't remember what alloys.
I think just about all stainless can rust under the right conditions, like constant exposure to salt and humidity.

[Jaakko]

Stainless steel rusts, that is a fact. It just takes much more time and effort than "regular" steel, because the alloy materials (chromium and nickel) forms a layer of oxide on the surface which prevents further oxidation (rusting).

The stainless steel can be ferritic when it has no nickel in it, thus preserving its magnetic properties (think kitchen knifes). But if you add nickel to stainless steel alloy, it preserves the austenitic structure of iron and thus it is non-magnetic.

[mongo]

yep, it rusts, the army uses it everywhere. you cannot use a cutting torch on stainless, as the oxidation process is hindered with an oxy/acet torch. It will not give the same results as normal metal.

when you clean stainless steel use only stainless steel wool or non ferrous anything.

As a contractor I have had to explain why your stainless sink has a rust stain that looks like one of your cheap butter knives. The sink is not start of this, the butter knife was rusting and was in your sink for about an hour or more. If you have this in your sink use a pen eraser or stainless steel wool to remove the stain.
Then buff out the scratches to prevent further Fe3O4.

Every metal rusts or oxides through exposure to our atmosphere and humidity (water). Copper turns green and has longevity. Aluminum creates Aluminum Oxide, a dusty grit (boxite??). We covered steel.

I make my one of a kind picks for me. A bull moose with a technician/mechanical background. I only use high speed hacksaw or chop saw blades. I then lightly oil them and wrap them in oil cloth

There exists several car jokes I would use, but.....its your turn.

Santa was good to me. I have deer meet for another year, who said he has 8 tiny......

[tballard]

I can't vouch for the effectiveness of citric acid, put I can tell you I had no problem at all buying a pound of it at my local Whole Foods a bit before Christmas. (Whole Foods is an organic/natural grocery store) So, anyone looking for it might want to check that sort of place.