2024-11-22
Stainless steel-Can stainless be magnetic?
Many of the best blog topics come up from conversations we have around the office or customer questions. Today's comes from both so it must be an absolute humdinger!Stainless steel is generally thought of as non-magnetic - but is it? Simply, the 300 series stainless steels (303, 304, and 316 are ones we use often) are referred to as "austenitic," which in simple terms means that their chromium and nickel contents are such that they are non-magnetic. Other stainless series, like 420 which is in "martensitic" and 430 which is "ferritic" don't have the nickel content that the 300 series stainless steels do, and have higher carbon content than austenitic stainless steels. This makes them magnetic. If your fridge door readily holds onto magnetic stuff, then it's likely either martensitic or ferritic and not austenitic. Great, but what does this have to do with boats?