Quote Originally Posted by floridaboy View Post
Listen I work in a medical practice, I have worked in the medical feild for a long time. You would need to autoclave at 250 to 270 degrees F. at 200 psi for at least 15 min. What do you think that would do to a scale, Let alone a high carbon blade, If you really want to see, Send me a razor and I will take pictures. The HIV Virus is very fragile, If exposed to air, it dies in about ten seconds, Hep is a different story, But it is not sterilising that kills it, Getting it out of the area is the best thing. That's why we "WASH" instraments befor the autoclave, and I do not know of any surgical cleaner that is geranteed to kill either virus.
I agree that you cannot kill spore forming bacteria with live steam. As to the autoclave and its effect on the scales:

The pressure doesn't matter, it's the temperature that causes the harm. 250-270 degrees in an autoclave would be the same as exposure to 250-270 degree superheated steam at atmospheric pressure. The pressure in an autoclave simply allows you to produce saturated steam at the elevated temperatures. Incidently, at 200 psig, you would need to have a temperature of 388 degrees F to generate steam. At 250-270 degrees, the pressure could only be 15-27 psig for an all steam atmosphere.

I'm not sure how temperature resistent scales are, probably different for different materials.