There are three elements only periodic table that draw a
magnet; iron, nickel and cobalt. SS and its alloys usually contain some amount of nickel, this is generally what makes it "stainless." Obviously some more, some less. One should not use Nd rare earth magnets as they are strong enough to pull on the nickel in 300 series stainless.
Originally Posted by
CTscrapman
I work with SS all the time at the shop. The primary value in it is the nickel. I see people post all the time that scrap yards give them #1 steel price for SS that is magnetic which to me makes no sense because the amount of nickel in 303-304 is 8-11% so the recovery rate is nearly the same but the value is different?? I think its just a way for the scrap yard to get over on unknowing people. Be as knowledgeable as you can going into situations. Just my opinion
300 series stainless should be bought separately than shred; even though the nickel market has seen much better days it has a similar value to just below cast aluminum. 400 series stainless is different however, as this has a significantly higher iron content. At my yard 400 series did indeed go in the shred pile. There may be a market for it above shred now but at the time it wasn't worth enough above shred to go through the trouble of keeping separate piles/bales.
In conclusion 300 series SS will weakly stick to a Nd rare earth magnet but not a conventional one. However 400 series will clearly strong pull with both types of magnets.
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