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).
- posted
9 years ago