Custom-cut stainless and sections
Stainless steel square hollow tube in Australia
The old catalogue’s square hollows — posts, frames, furniture and the wall thicknesses that decide whether a gate looks like a rail or a tank.
24 March 2026
Archive
All stainless steel articles
32 essays, all linked from a hub and from this index. Nothing here is a product page.
Custom-cut stainless and sections
Stainless steel tube versus pipe in Australia
The old Melbourne catalogue sold both round hollows. They are not the same order, and mixing the words is how a handrail becomes a pressure job.
23 March 2026
Custom-cut stainless and sections
Stainless steel round bar in Australia
Solid round is the quiet cousin of sheet — shafts, pins, threaded studs and the grades Australian merchants actually bin.
22 March 2026
Marine, balustrade and outdoors
Pool and marine stainless fittings
Water that works harder than a sea breeze — chlorinated, creviced, and unimpressed by the word marine.
21 March 2026
Marine, balustrade and outdoors
Stainless fasteners A2 vs A4
The bag of bolts that quietly undoes a 316 job — A2 is 304 chemistry, A4 is 316, and the coast can tell the difference.
20 March 2026
Marine, balustrade and outdoors
Coastal stainless steel care
A hose, a schedule, and the humility to admit 316 still needs washing.
19 March 2026
Marine, balustrade and outdoors
316 stainless balustrades in Australia
Posts, slotted tube and the barrier job a journal will not certify — 316L is the metal, not a National Construction Code stamp.
18 March 2026
Kitchens and hygiene stainless
Outdoor kitchens and barbecue stainless
Lids, benches and the moment 304 meets an Australian coastal afternoon.
17 March 2026
Kitchens and hygiene stainless
Stainless steel coving and corner guards
The folded details the old catalogue already made in-house — slightly over 90°, 1.2 mm, wipeable.
16 March 2026
Kitchens and hygiene stainless
Commercial kitchen stainless requirements
Hygiene as detailing — continuous welds, coved corners, and a wash that does not include a chloride souvenir.
15 March 2026
Kitchens and hygiene stainless
Stainless steel benchtops in Australia
304, No. 4, a carcass that does not drum, and the upstand the inspector can wipe.
14 March 2026
Fabrication, welding and care
Stainless steel vs galvanised vs aluminium
Three metals the old shop family actually sold — and the Australian jobs where swapping them is a mistake.
13 March 2026
Fabrication, welding and care
Cleaning stainless steel without chloride damage
Neutral detergent, the grain, and the bleach bottle that ages a bench by a decade.
12 March 2026
Fabrication, welding and care
Passivation after stainless fabrication
The chemical reset the passive film deserves after a weld, a grind or a shear — citric or nitric, never bleach.
11 March 2026
Fabrication, welding and care
Tea staining on stainless steel
The brown film ASSDA already documented — not “fake stainless,” not always the wrong alloy, and not cured by a steel wool pad.
10 March 2026
Fabrication, welding and care
Welding 304 and 316 stainless
TIG, stick, filler metals, heat tint and the Australian standard you should be naming — AS/NZS 1554.6 — instead of a YouTube setting.
9 March 2026
Custom-cut stainless and sections
Cutting stainless steel sheet on site
Shears, nibblers, grinders and the swarf that rusts on someone else’s 316.
8 March 2026
Custom-cut stainless and sections
Stainless steel flat bar for trades
The dull HRAP lengths that hold brackets, straps, ledgers and truths about finish.
7 March 2026
Custom-cut stainless and sections
Stainless steel channel vs folded channel
The U that comes from a mill and the U that comes off a folder — including the old site’s rule that the base cannot be narrower than the legs.
6 March 2026
Custom-cut stainless and sections
Stainless steel angle sizes and uses
Hot-rolled HRAP versus folded sheet angle — two products that share a name and almost no behaviour.
5 March 2026
Custom-cut stainless and sections
Custom-cut stainless steel in Australia
What the old Melbourne homepage actually sold — blanks, folds, tolerances, and the edge that will never look extruded.
4 March 2026
Sheet, plate and finishes
Protecting stainless steel during install
PVC film, paper, no carbon-steel wool, and the week between the shear and the photoshoot.
2 March 2026
Sheet, plate and finishes
Stainless steel thickness chart for Australian trades
Millimetres first. Gauge numbers second. The kitchen 1.2 mm versus the 3 mm that suddenly needs a different parent sheet.
28 February 2026
Sheet, plate and finishes
Stainless steel sheet sizes in Australia
2400 × 1200 is not a law — but it is the blank most custom-cut counters still think in.
26 February 2026
Sheet, plate and finishes
Brushed vs polished stainless steel
The kitchen argument that is really about fingerprints, grit, grain and what a client thinks “modern” means.
24 February 2026
Sheet, plate and finishes
Stainless steel finishes explained
2B, No. 4, bright annealed and No. 8 — the finish names the old Melbourne catalogue already treated as first-class options, not moods.
22 February 2026
Stainless grades and alloys
How to identify a stainless steel grade
Magnets, stamps, mill certificates and the tests that still cannot replace a heat number.
20 February 2026
Stainless grades and alloys
Duplex stainless steel vs 316
When 316 runs out of courage — tanks, seawater, chloride stress — and the duplex family Australian plants actually name.
18 February 2026
Stainless grades and alloys
Food-grade stainless steel in Australia
Not a third alloy — a use case. What 304 and 316 actually have to do in kitchens, plant and anything FSANZ would recognise as food contact.
16 February 2026
Stainless grades and alloys
What marine-grade stainless steel actually means
A sales nickname, not a seawater warranty — and the Australian jobs where 316 is necessary but still not enough.
14 February 2026
Stainless grades and alloys
What is 430 stainless steel?
The magnetic, cheaper ferritic that Australian merchants still sell — and the indoor jobs where it is honest, not a coastal substitute for 304.
12 February 2026
Stainless grades and alloys
304 vs 316 stainless steel in Australia
The two austenitics Australian trades actually order, and the coastal, food and budget tests that decide between them.
10 February 2026
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