What fabrication tips should the fabricator keep in mind?
Design can aid clean-ability, so well-designed parts with rounded corners, fillets and absence of crevices facilitate cleaning, as do smooth ground welds and polished surfaces. Post-fabrication handling is also important. Scale or slag that forms from welding processes is often removed by the fabricator with a stainless steel wire brush. It is important that the wire brushes used for plain steel cleaning NOT be used for stainless steel cleaning, as those brushes will leave carbon steel particles in the surface, which will eventually lead to surface rusting of the stainless. For more severe applications, welded areas should be treated with a de-scaling solution such as a mixture of nitric and hydrofluoric acids, which should be subsequently washed off. For cleaning of small areas, commercially available pickling pastes may be used.
