Welcome back to Albany County Fasteners - Fasteners 101
The question of the day:
"Is stainless steel magnetic?" Let's get started.
So I have here some nuts, a lock washer, dowel pin,
a hex cap screw or tap bolt
all of these items here are 316 stainless and you may be able to see that.
You'll see that marking on there: 316.
You can see it on the nut. It's going to be hard for you to
see it on the camera but on the nut it's marked as 316.
These parts are all 316 stainless. 316 stainless is typically non-magnetic,
however, there is a challenge and we'll talk about that in a minute.
This is aluminum
and this is 304, 18-8 stainless
and these also have the markings for that.
So I get calls all the time from customers questioning: "why is this
is this stainless magnetic or partially magnetic"?
So the answer is that some parts in 316, if you were to buy 316
unformed, untooled, in a stock piece of stainless,
it would be non-magnetic.
However when you take
a hex cap screw or a tap bolt like this that's been put into a
cold form machine to work the stainless
you're then changing the crystal makeup
of the stainless steel and that's
what makes it magnetic.
So this hex cap screw is magnetic.
It's 316 stainless, you would think that
it would be non-magnetic but the fact is
it is magnetic, it doesn't matter if
it's made here in the USA,
it doesn't matter if it's made in Taiwan,
or it's made in India, if it fits the makeup
of stainless and then you cold form it,
that's what makes it magnetic.
You're changing the crystal structure of the actual stainless itself
and I'm going to demonstrate that to you right now. I have a
magnet here
I'm going to show you that this is magnetic.
Now I'm going to show you a nut, which is stainless 316.
A nut is not worked, it's just cut. The sides are cut.
Okay, then after it's cut a tap goes in and threads the inside.
So there's no twisting, turning, hammering, banging of
the stainless so the crystals in a stainless steel
nut are not changed in anyway or form.
So this will end up being non-magnetic.
It will not pick up the magnet at all.
Put the magnet on top, it just falls off.
This is a dowel pin in 316 stainless.
This is just a plain piece of stock,
5/16 inch diameter dowel pin, and all they
do is cut it.
Then they just chamfer the edges so there's no bending or twisting
of this and you will see its
non-magnetic. Not holding.
Same thing with this nut, another 316 stainless nut,
different size; still non-magnetic.
This is a lock washer and this lock washer has been worked.
It's just a piece of straight stock and it's been twisted around a jig to create the
size of the lock washer and then it's bent.
So this will prove out to be magnetic.
That's all the 316 stainless.
304, 18-8, is partially magnetic. Period.
Typically it is partially magnetic.
There's a lot of false information out
there that all stainless steel is
non-magnetic. Totally untrue. Really the
only one that's non-magnetic, other than some
special stainless, is this 316 stainless and
that's the stainless you use in salt
water applications and that's the one
that you won't find surface
corrosion or deep corrosion.
So I'm going to demonstrate now for you
this nut and let's see if we get any
partial-if it picks up the magnet.
You will see its partially magnetic; it
doesn't hold it very strong.
It's not as strong as with the 316;
it's like very strong. With this it's
like partially
magnetic. So it's like I have to hold it
there a second and then pick it up. You'll
see it'll just drop off. So that's what
they call partially magnetic. This hex cap
screw has been put through a cold form
process to make the head.
That's what changed the crystal makeup
of this hex cap screw thus making
it magnetic.
This is a rivet, stainless steel-304 stainless.
This whole rivet is worked and the whole
crystallization of stainless has been
changed; the whole structure. So I'm going
to demonstrate for you that this will
show up as being highly magnetic. There it is.
That's the Hat part and this is the
mandrel. All magnetic.
I'm throwing in here a piece of aluminum.
This is an aluminum rivet. An aluminum rivet
is obviously a metal that is not
magnetic and it will not pick up at all.
So if you really want total non-magnetic
there's aluminum and that's basically my
demonstration of showing you that
stainless steel, depending upon how it's
been treated, how it becomes magnetic.
There you go.
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