We have some cheap but perfectly functional stainless steel saucepans
with glass lids. Another feature which they have is a second (thin)
stainless steel baseplate. One of the saucepans has started to
delaminate badly, so I pulled the baseplate off to investigate (by hand,
relatively easily). I was interested to discover that the two layers
were originally bonded together by "soldering" with some form of white
metal alloy, softer than the stainless but (by a scratch test) harder
than typical aluminium sheet. The bond was not particularly strong but
it certainly appeared to have wetted both sides originally. Anyone got
an idea what the material might be? (Next time I am in a lab with
SEM/EDAX I will see if I can sneek in a sample, but I don't know when
that might be). I am assuming it might be unwise to continue using the
pan with a gas flame now playing directly on the "solder". Obviously, I
could attack it with a propane torch to see if I can get back to the
stainless pan body, but I guess that is likely to distort it (as well as
creating a thicker oxide).

In article ,
newshound writes:
We have some cheap but perfectly functional stainless steel saucepans
with glass lids. Another feature which they have is a second (thin)
stainless steel baseplate. One of the saucepans has started to
delaminate badly, so I pulled the baseplate off to investigate (by hand,
relatively easily). I was interested to discover that the two layers
were originally bonded together by "soldering" with some form of white
metal alloy, softer than the stainless but (by a scratch test) harder
than typical aluminium sheet. The bond was not particularly strong but
it certainly appeared to have wetted both sides originally. Anyone got
an idea what the material might be? (Next time I am in a lab with
SEM/EDAX I will see if I can sneek in a sample, but I don't know when
that might be). I am assuming it might be unwise to continue using the
pan with a gas flame now playing directly on the "solder". Obviously, I
could attack it with a propane torch to see if I can get back to the
stainless pan body, but I guess that is likely to distort it (as well as
creating a thicker oxide).

Are you sure the extra base is stanless steel? It's expensive and
has poor heat properties for a pan base, which is why an aluminium
or copper base is often attached to stainless steel pans.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On Mon, 26 May 2014 09:16:21 +0000 (UTC),
(Andrew Gabriel) wrote:

In article ,
newshound writes:
We have some cheap but perfectly functional stainless steel saucepans
with glass lids. Another feature which they have is a second (thin)
stainless steel baseplate.

Are you sure the extra base is stanless steel? It's expensive and
has poor heat properties for a pan base, which is why an aluminium
or copper base is often attached to stainless steel pans.

Or it could be a different grade of Stainless Steel that will let them
work on Induction Hobs if the main part hasn't got the right
Ferromagnetic properties.

G.Harman

On 26/05/2014 20:04, wrote:
On Mon, 26 May 2014 09:16:21 +0000 (UTC),
(Andrew Gabriel) wrote:

In article ,
newshound writes:
We have some cheap but perfectly functional stainless steel saucepans
with glass lids. Another feature which they have is a second (thin)
stainless steel baseplate.

Are you sure the extra base is stanless steel? It's expensive and
has poor heat properties for a pan base, which is why an aluminium
or copper base is often attached to stainless steel pans.

Or it could be a different grade of Stainless Steel that will let them
work on Induction Hobs if the main part hasn't got the right
Ferromagnetic properties.

G.Harman


Yes, I am sure it is stainless (from the oxide colours where it has
separated and become very hot in the gas flame). It's not a ferritic
stainless because there is no trace of magnetism with a rare earth
magnet. It's about 0.45 mm thick.