STAINLESS STEEL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 1 April 1936, Page 7

STAINLESS STEEL

TO CREATE: NEW ERA NO BARNACLES ON SHIPS A Sheffield scientist has invented a new type of stainless steel, which, it is claimed, is considerably cheaper than the present method and will revolutionise hundreds of industries, says the London correspondent of the “Herald.” After five years of research, Mr F. F. Gordon, director of a Sheffield steel works, has discovered a process for banding ordinary steel and stainless steel; in other words, he has found a way to give ordinary steel a coating of stainless steel, which will make the whole absolutely rustless. Sheffield’s output of stainless steel is now considerable, but it is estimated that the use of the new cheaper process will increase the demand greatly. Sheets of ordinary steel can be given a stainless steel coating of less than one-thousandth of an inch or even thinner. This opens up possibilities of the stainless steel ship, stainless steel bridges and aeroplanes, railway carriages, springs, etc., of the same rustless material, liy the new process razor blades, it is claimed, could be given a rustless surface, and a stainless coating could bo given to sheets of corrugated iron for roofs, and applied also to all metal pipes and containers.

Shipowners are put to heavy expense by having to send their vessels repeatedly into dry dock for the removal of barnacles from the hull. Experiments are said to have proved that barnacles will not adhere to stainless steel.