Stainless steel

[Caroline Foulkes]

Hi,
has anybody ever used this as an alternative to silver? (Ok, I know it's not as nice, but just wondering!). If so, what problems did you find with it? Where do you get it?

cheers from a cold Glasgow :help:

[mizgeorge]

I occasionally make chains with stainless steel - usually commissions for 'real men' who think it's namby pamby to wear silver ;)

These only use wire, which I find very hard to work. At the bigger gauges (which these inevitably are) it's tough on the fingers. And I go through saw blades like nobody's business!

[Coco]

I haven't worked with it yet but I have a stainless steel ring that's really nice to wear and I definitely want to give it a go.

I think you have to keep it away from silver during making, can't remember why though. It's unsolderable and turns silver unsolderable or turns silver a funny colour, or something.

[ps_bond]

There's an awful lot of different stainless steels...

Many of them are complete pigs to work with. Some of them are hardenable. Some aren't. All of them contain 12% chromium or greater. Most of them contain nickel - which is potentially a problem with the EU Nickel Directive.

I've seen references to using 316L in watches (and that's a nickel one). 416 is a nice one to work - free machining, so it cuts about the same as brass.

I can't remember if the sheets I've got sat around are 316L or not. They eat sawblades though, and they're just 1.6mm.

[Tags]

I can't remember if the sheets I've got sat around are 316L or not.


Can I be so cheeky as to ask where you got the stainless steel sheets from?

[ps_bond]

Can I be so cheeky as to ask where you got the stainless steel sheets from?

Nowhere useful for anyone else, I'm afraid... They're from scrapped equipment - rack-mounted stuff.

[ben b]

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