I sell a lot of tooling to motor cycle restorers. Particularly taps and dies in BSC, CEI Coarse, and UN 24 pitch series. Many restorers like to have stainless fasteners as they dont rust when the machine is stored in the shed for months or years without use. I always stress to a new customer not to replace heat treated high tensile fasteners with stainless. I also give them a handout on hand tapping stainless. If you are ever going to break a tap, you will do so in stainless if not very careful. Thus you may have a broken tap in the only Bradford Bunfight crankshaft in the world. This can seriously ruin your day.Quote:
Originally Posted by gromit
There is a guy in Brisbane who caters to the hobby by machining special parts and fasteners. He tells his clients to bring their own taps and dies if they want him to make stainless fasteners. He doesn't want his own flogged out or broken. Stainless is hard on thread cutting tools.
"Stainless Steel" is actually a cutlery steel patented in 1916 and the term has come into common use for all of this type of alloy steel. The correct and long winded term is Chromium Nickel Corrosion Resistant Alloy Steel.
There are a multitude of grades. All contain chromium, some contain nickel; some are magnetic, some are not; some are martensitic, some are austenitic; some can be heat treated, most can not.
