How to Deal with Scratches on Mirror-finished 316 Stainless Steel Pipes?

In the stainless steel family, 316 stainless steel pipe stands out with its unique composition and performance. It is an austenitic stainless steel with a face-centered cubic crystal structure, which makes it have good toughness and ductility at room temperature. Compared with the common 304 stainless steel, 316 stainless steel pipe has better corrosion resistance and high temperature resistance due to the addition of molybdenum.

If you accidentally scratch a mirror-polished 316 stainless steel pipe, how can you rescue it? If the scratch is not very serious, during the mirror polishing process, you can slow down the speed of the feed roller and lower the grinding head to grind the scratched area as smooth as possible. According to years of experience, there are several situations in which scratches on mirror-polished 316 stainless steel pipes appear:

1. Before processing, the stainless steel pipe was originally scratched; it was just not obvious, so it is necessary to judge the severity of the scratch. If the scratch area and scratch depth have exceeded the customer's acceptance of the final product effect, then the steel pipe that meets the requirements should be replaced, which means that the control of the processing operator is very important.

2. The 316 stainless steel tube has been mirror-finished, but it was accidentally scratched during the film application process. There are many types of scratches, such as point scratches, linear scratches, and large-area scratches. Point scratches, regardless of depth, can be repaired by argon arc welding, then polished with a grinder, and then processed twice or more with mirror polishing equipment, which can basically solve this problem.

If you are repairing the bright surface, you can use the polishing method and repeatedly polish with polishing wheels of different mesh sizes. Generally, sandblasting is used to repair matte surfaces, which requires special equipment. If wire drawing has been done in the early stage, special equipment is also required for processing. No matter which of the above methods is used, the surface must be passivated in the end. If it is judged to be a slight scratch, if it is a mirror surface, you can use polishing wax to polish the stainless steel product tube. If it is brushed, you can use a wire drawing machine to draw the surface of the tube.

Then there are linear scratches, which we call scratches. It is relatively difficult to deal with scratches. Shallow scratches can be solved by the above methods (slow down the speed of the feed roller and lower the grinding head). Deep scratches are not easy to deal with. In addition, let's talk about large-area scratches and scratches, which are also divided into two situations: deep and shallow scratches, and the treatment methods are the same as above.

If it is the second type of scratch, it is more difficult. Because this secondary scratch should be avoided as much as possible. It is recommended that you use the following methods to reduce or avoid the possibility of scratches on mirror stainless steel welded pipes: stick protective film on the surface, pack with wooden frames, pad cardboard or plastic boards on the upper and lower sides, pack with waterproof paper as a whole, and clearly indicate "protect the pipe surface, do not scratch" on the packaging surface.

The above is how to deal with scratches on the mirror surface of 316 stainless steel pipe. If the finished mirror stainless steel welded pipe has scratches, it can basically be fixed according to the method mentioned above. If it is a semi-finished product, and the surface is mirror-finished and scratched, you need to use a variety of polishing equipment; such as a handheld polishing machine with a variety of replaceable polishing wheels, which can achieve a better repair effect for 316 stainless steel pipe.

Article source: https://article-realm.com/article/Business/72200-How-to-Deal-with-Scratches-on-Mirror-finished-316-Stainless-Steel-Pipes.html