Resistant to corrosion, Modern and attractive, hygienic and easy to clean, sustainable, maintenance friendly, easy to fabricate fully recyclable are few reasons that make stainless steel perfect for structural and decorative aspects of building and other sectors. Above stated reasons influence the designers and contractors to use steel in different fields eg; street furniture, building, kitchen appliances and equipment.
small to medium sized companies who are approached with these ideas and who face the requirement of these few new finishes and technologies to accomplish those ideas often like sheet metal working, laser welding ,grinding ,polishing and brushing.
Identifying the grit size is only a part of the specification process. to match the requirement the best way is to use a swatch sample. Written or numeric descriptions aren’t enough to specify a mechanical or steel finish hence swatch is the best way to obtain what’s desired.
A lot depends on what the steel is going to be used as for very smooth surface a highly polished reflective finish is required ... For example En.1.4301/1.4307 are used for external applications and En 1.4401/1.4404 are used for more corrosive environments also in some countries for resistance against intercristalline En.1.4541 and 1.4571 are used as alternatives corrosion instead of 1.4307 and 1.4404.
Above grades are less suitable for decorative polishing purposes as they give uneven look. If such grades are offered by suppliers they shouldn’t be used as the wouldn’t be bale to match the existing finish.
A transparent thin passive layer on the surface is formed due to the alloying elements in stainless steel. Steel also has a unique feature of self healing.
Under the influence of oxygen provided by air and water if the stainless steel is damaged or scratched also it reforms itself as the passive layer is only few atoms thick thus giving u the reason why it doesn’t require any protection in service.
