18/10 vs. 18/8 and 18/0 stainless steel for flatware and pots & pans p.2

A. Hi, Barbara. I can't see any reason a manufacturer would put lead into a stainless steel product. However, if you were talking silver plated flatware, there probably are some machinability advantages to making it from leaded brass rather than nickel silver.

That doesn't mean I personally believe there will be lead in a piece of silverplate, but based on the news, I'm making no promises on behalf of Chinese manufacturers :-)

Regards,

A. Hi, Barbara. No, there is no aluminum in 18/8 stainless.

Regards,

A. Hi, Rosemary. 18/8 is not magnetic and neither is 18/10. 18/10 is better and more expensive but I think it's unlikely that a quality brand of 18/8 would be unsatisfactory.

Regards,

A. Hi, Patti. Cold working during manufacture can leave 18/8 with some magnetic attraction. But if it's highly magnetic, the same as regular steel, I'd say it probably is not 18/8.

Regards,

A. silly :-) Hi, J Fred Muggs. My sympathies that your parents made a monkey out of you!

Now please don't let the manufacturer do the same. If he doesn't claim 18/10 I think it would be a big leap of faith to assume it.

Regards,

A. Hi, Bobbie. 18 gauge is heavier than 20 gauge. Type 304 and 18/10 could be essentially the same thing. The wording "type 304" is just a little more exacting about the composition than the more generic 18 percent chrome 10 percent nickel.

Regards,

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

A. Hi, Diane. I can't comment because I've never heard of it. Sorry. Does anyone know the composition or anything else about it beyond that they call it "14/1"?

If it's 14 percent chrome and 1 or 4 percent nickel, someone is counting fractions of pennies in their cost-cutting programs. How did that work out for American car makers whose mantra was "If G.M. can save 1/10¢ each on a hundred billion screws ..." just before the Japanese penchant for quality savaged our domestic auto industry?

Regards,

A. Hi Tobby. The stainless steel used for flatware cannot hold a sharp edge. Knives used for cutting must be made of series 400, i.e., 4xx stainless steel. It will get rust pots much more readily than the 300 series, i.e., 3xx but it's a necessary thing is we want sharp knives :-)

Regards,

A. I did some sleuthing and found out the following. The opinions stated below are from a kitchenware manufacturer. Does anyone know more about patta and if J4 is better then J7 or anything on the coil vs patta quality?
Thanks!

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Coil is a industrial form of making steel....and comes in the form of coil (sheet rolled in coil)....Jindal steel is famous for this....this grade is known as J7 in Jindal... whereas patta steel....is a brick steel and flattened in small units to make sheet... these are like 6 feet x 4 feet coil flattened... so it doesn't have consistency in quality.... and the price difference in patta 14/1 and coil 14/1 is almost 30%

14/1 Stainless steel is 14% chromium and 1% nickel. This is the highest selling material in kitchen utensils from India. We are not using J7 coil or patta, both have nickel content of 0.25 % and chromium 14%

We are using J4 patta, that is re-rolled sheets, they have nickel content of 1% and chromium 14%.

J4 is much better then J7.
<- End Quote.

A. Hi, Jane. There are multiple systems for grading or identifying stainless steel; 18/10 is one system and 316 is another. These are the best stainless steels used in consumer items and 18/10 and 316 are essentially the same thing.

I don't think 14/1 is a problem, because all stainless steels are essentially non-reactive to foods. But it is a cheaper grade because of the limited nickel content and the "low in nickel so it won't leach into foods" stuff strikes me personally as silly.

I've expressed my opinion that there is more to it than alloy composition, so as a consumer you are pretty much limited to trying to find a reliable brand. In my opinion your best guideline is to find a company which never licenses their logo. In my limited experience, most Japanese brands don't, but most American brands do.

Try to find the owners' instructions, the registration card and the warranty instructions and look for any reference to a company name or service outlet other than the brand name in question. Any company that is into "meatball whoring" in this way is, in my personal opinion, not to be trusted. I once bought an answering machine with the "IBM" meatball on all 6 faces of the box, only to discover when the piece of garbage didn't last 2 weeks, that IBM apparently had absolutely nothing to do with it and simply sold their hard-earned reputation for quick cash :-)

Regards,

A. Hi, Heidi. Here's the main problem to me: 18/8 and 18/10 have an established meaning and 21/10 doesn't.

If someone advertises 18/10 flatware and then ships you junk, claiming 18/10 meant 18 percent bent and 10 percent missing, no judge or arbitrator in the world would accept it because 18/10 has a universally accepted meaning.

What does 21/10 mean? 21 percent chrome and 10 percent nickel? Maybe, but who says? Google it and you'll see. Brass is not an element that you can have a certain percentage of; rather, it's an alloy itself that has some percentage of zinc and some percentage of copper, and possibly some percentage of tin. I would pay little attention to the "21/10" phrase, and judge whether to buy it by the rest of the description and circumstances, and especially trustable reviews. Good luck.

Regards,