Thread: Thin bare/naked sheet that won't rust or scratch easy

Looking for thin flat/smooth ~1.2mm steel that will sit on a solid sub surface so that water containers will sit & slide on this thin sheet. Panting isn't possible as it will chip & wear in no time. what type of steel won't rust at all & is smooth & pretty resilient to scratches?

Does fine polishing or sanding steel prevent surface rust?


thanks

Originally Posted by Tegmark

Looking for thin flat/smooth ~1.2mm steel that will sit on a solid sub surface so that water containers will sit & slide on this thin sheet. Panting isn't possible as it will chip & wear in no time. what type of steel won't rust at all & is smooth & pretty resilient to scratches?

Does fine polishing or sanding steel prevent surface rust?

No

I'd be looking at stainless for anti rust properties but it will scratch relatively easily.

I agree with Bob, but you need to be fairly selective about the grade of Stainless that you use. For example, 316 is a marine grade stainless and will take a lot of abuse in a marine environment without showing rust, while 304 (fairly common as bog standard SS) will tarnish fairly rapidly and show pinpoint rust spots after a year or exposed to the elements, let alone a salt environment.
Both will have a polish scuffed of them fairly quickly once you start sliding containers over the surface.

Stainless is available in a variety of finishes. If you go for the highly polished finish then it will show the scratches, where as the mill finish (?) still scratches but does not show it so much. One alternative if you can only get the polished variety is to scuff it up with a fine sanding disc or wire brush - that will make any scratches less obvious.
The other thing is how bad the scratches will be. If you think about a kitchen sink, they copy some treatment but apart from the polish being scuffed away, you are not talking deep gouges - that may be good enough.

Michael

Looking at this from a laymans view, I think when when you say doesn't scratch, you mean the protective coating. 316 Stainless will do what you want but will be expensive to purchase and also fix whereas a sheet of gal will do the same job, can be welded or riveted in place and will last at least a good 20 years unless you're loading seawater

It's probably outside your spec, but chequer plate is ideal for sliding stuff over and is available in SS or aluminium. It'll be thicker than 1.2mm though.

I built my 3000 X 1500 mm Tandem Box trailer 20 years ago and used 2 mm gal sheet for the tub. The gal on the floor has only warn off in the last 18 months. Yes I am inland so rust is less of a problem but the trailer is parked under the "blue roof" (the great outdoors) all the time. The floor is dark red surface rust colour now but it doesn't seem to be rusting through.

I've got an old trailer with a painted steel checker plate floor. Things slide on it easily. The paint on the top of the bumps has work off, but it will take a very long time to ever rust through. Trailer is always outside in the elements.

Tegmark mate .... without further information and in strict accordance with your original post ...... the only truly honest reply is ...... "mate ya dreaming"

Even stanless when presented with water and a gap to hold it will corrode and given the right abrasive involved everything will scratch.

A bit more information and maybe a better answer will come.

cheers

If things are always sliding that might be enough to keep rubbing off the rust in itself.

Or, surely there are products available that could be used to coat a tray, like bed liners?

Or you could paint it and lay down some boat slide strips so that the containers never contact the metal?

Originally Posted by Legion

If things are always sliding that might be enough to keep rubbing off the rust in itself.

Or, surely there are products available that could be used to coat a tray, like bed liners?

Or you could paint it and lay down some boat slide strips so that the containers never contact the metal?

My thoughts too - if things are getting slid along it all the time, it will stay as a fairly polished surface anyway.

And your last point is fair too - the OP said a 'solid sub surface'. Sounds like the steel will just be there to provide a smooth sliding surface, so maybe the steel is not needed at all. Maybe just some strips of some style of engineering plastic/nylon, you can get some with some sort of additives to reduce friction, designed for similar applications...

All depends on the weight of the water containers I suppose...

Yep thats what I thought, get some sort of phenolic plastic sheet and glue it over the steel... might not be cheap though

I would look at G10, it's not that expensive and very scratch resistant.

In general the more polished a steel surface the less it will be inclined to rust, but in this instance it will make no difference.

I know you mention steel, but if it's on top of a solid surface and going to get banged up a bit, why not use a sheet of teflon or similar. I used it to line my fuel tank cutouts on my boat and they have held up really well, the tanks are changed every few weeks.

Yeh if it realy comes down to it ...... if you have a good solid substrate , one of the super resilient two pack paints may be a simpler, cheaper and better choice.