Stainless Steel Question

[osirissail]

- - If the price was not so extremely high I would switch to stainless steel. The oceans and seas are not what they used to be. Now they are very acidic and the galvanizing on the steel chain dissolves rather rapidly. In the Indian River in Florida it only takes 6 months or so before you are back to uncoated steel chain. Elsewhere maybe a year or two before the HT chain becomes a mass of red rust. My foredeck and bow platform has ugly red stains from the HT chain after only 1 year. Bummer.

[delmarrey]

Originally Posted by osirissail

- - The oceans and seas are not what they used to be. Now they are very acidic and the galvanizing on the steel chain dissolves rather rapidly. In the Indian River in Florida it only takes 6 months or so before you are back to uncoated steel chain. Elsewhere maybe a year or two before the HT chain becomes a mass of red rust.

Yeah!!!

[danilyn]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

Not sure how you would do that without a cert. A magnet isnt always a good test of SS either. Good stainless steel will be non magnetic in the solution treated or annealed condition. However, once it is cold worked (bent, formed, forged etc) it will accumulate magnetic properties.... The cold working can actually improve it's strength or if overworked can make it less durable...

Stainless steels can be hard to identify. The different types can be distinguished by methods as:

*magnet testing

*spark testing

*hardness testing

*acid testing.

There is magnetic and non-magnetic stainless steel.

Some austenitic grades, particularly 304, are attracted when cold worked, e.g. by bending, forming or rolling. Stress relieving at cherry-red heat will remove this response due to cold work. This stress relief may sensitize the steel and should not be performed on an item which is later to be used in a corrosive environment.

[Wand]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Check out Dave Gerr’s comments on Stainless Chain in his “Boat Mechanical Systems Handbook” (pages 352/353)
➥ Boat Mechanical Systems Handbook ... - Google Books

Hopefully, our resident chain experet, GMac, will chime in with always pertinent, accurate, and useful advice.

There's been a lot of debate in different threads about stainless chain for anchoring on this forum, and I think it's worth noting that Dave Gerr (cited by Gordmay above) approves (quality, stamped) 316 SS for that job. The factors often argued to be problems for SS usage for anchoring he says are problems for 304 only. Seems he and Craig Smith are on the same page on this.

Unfortunately he has not commented on SS for mooring work, with which I am currently experimenting.