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Reduce scratches on ss sections

I have a small shop for architectural metal work, mainly manufacturing ss 316 g balusdrading. I am looking for ways to reduce scratches during manufacuring (sawing,weldig) before the last sending finish, at the moment I use MDF shits on welding table. How can I raise the quality of handling the ss sections when feeding the saw and on the table? Is there any company or a book dealing with that kind of solutions?

REGARDS

Daniel Kasher
KASHER architectural metal work - Perth, Western Australia
2004

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I think (do not know) that the biggest problem in using MDF board is that even tho it is fairly hard, it will retain some metal particles in the surface which can scratch the SS. I am not sure that there is any good answer to this other than wrapping the material with a moderately heavy paper, which would have a higher labor cost than material cost, but might more than offset later labor to smooth out scratches.

You might try covering the worksurface that the material touches with a UHMW polyethylene tape. It is nearly as slippery as teflon, a lot cheaper, harder and readily available in several widths. Might be worth a try.

James Watts
- Navarre, Florida
2004