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In article .net,
thrugoodmarshall wrote:

There are a lot of materials out there called "stainless" steel.
I'm not going to cut & paste from their publications; you can quite easily
read what they have to say at:
http://www.ssina.com/publications/index.html

You may especially be interested in:
Care and cleaning: http://www.ssina.com/publications/ccss.html
Residential applications: http://www.ssina.com/publications/stn_rez.html

There is a technique called "passivation" that can make the "stainless"
steel more resistant to corrosion. When I worked for a healthcare
manufacturer, everything was made of stainless, and everything had to be
passivated before it went into production. Passivation is a nasty process,
and should probably NOT be done at home. However, here are some links if
you want to learn...

Overview of passivation:
http://www.pfonline.com/articles/119806.html

The pertinent sentence from the above page:
"In lay terms, the passivation process removes "free iron" contamination
left behind on the surface of the stainless steel from machining and
fabricating."

Nitric acid process for passivation:
http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/Mat...assivation.htm

Citric acid process for passivation:
http://www.pfonline.com/articles/059905.html

Thanks for the passivation links. I've been using nitric acid for years
to etch my stainless blades, mainly ATS-34, S-30-V and some
pattern-welded blends. Always called it "etching" or "pickling" and
mainly did it to bring out the grain in the steel. Never knew the
precise mechanism behind it.

-Frank

--
fwarner1-at-franksknives-dot-com
Here's some of my work:
http://www.franksknives.com/