Thread: mixed metals

I am new at restoring old razors. I found brass rods at ACE and some 0-70 and 0-80 stainless washers (.17ea) if I wanted to use these to pin and space with. Any concerns about using these stainless washers with the brass?
They also had micro stainless nuts and bolts (tiny phillips head) that would work to pin with. Anyone using these?
Headdoc

I don't see any problem with using the stainless and brass together, but what I DO see a problem with is using the stainless at all. Stainless rusts, brass doesn't. So if you use stainless washers between the blade and scales or as a pin through the blade, if any water gets trapped in there it'll turn to rust really quickly. I don't know if anyone else will say they will be fine, but I wouldn't use stainless at all.

Originally Posted by Philadelph

I don't see any problem with using the stainless and brass together, but what I DO see a problem with is using the stainless at all. Stainless rusts, brass doesn't. So if you use stainless washers between the blade and scales or as a pin through the blade, if any water gets trapped in there it'll turn to rust really quickly. I don't know if anyone else will say they will be fine, but I wouldn't use stainless at all.

Brass does, in fact "rust". Furthermore I would argue it does so faster than stainless (orders of magnitude faster). Some stainless is even galvanically neutral.

See this article for principles involved in rusting, mixing metals and how to prevent rust using dissimilar metals. http://www.seaguard.co.nz/corrosion.html

Mixing the metals you mentioned should not be a problem since the galvanic interaction will tend to make the brass corrode before the stainless. Once a layer of oxides is formed, the brass will be sealed and will stay pretty stable. The blade also comes into play here and may, in fact, start to oxidize before any of the hardware (depending on the type of steel).