Discolouring Stainless Steel Mouthpiece.

[Dan Schultz]

Well... there several grades of 'stainless' steel. None are truly 'stainless'. Basically, it's regular steel with a healthy dose of nickel. Some of the grades are magnetic and some are not. Some will rust and some will not. You need to go straight to the manufacturer if you have questions or concerns.

[djwesp]

if you cleaned it with straight clorox it will turn brown *don't ask how i found that out* or at least that was the case with mine


but some wrights polish fixes it

[Ivan Giddings]

Hi,

I saw the thread here and wanted to answer your questions.

These mouthpieces are pure stainless steel, no chromium surface to wear through. This is a discoloration caused by a micron of iron on the surface of your mouthpiece, it will not lead to premature disintegration of your mouthpiece or any health problems.

We polish our mouthpieces to a very shiny finish, and in the process we do some heat treatment as well. The polished finish usually 99.999% of the time seals the mouthpiece.
Stainless steel does have iron in it, and with your mouthpiece you have a tiny iron particle (we are talking microns here) on the surface, this will discolor that area (usually about the size of a sharp pencil lead). Those who are worried about a stainless steel mouthpiece rusting away to nothingness that is simply impossible. Our mouthpieces will theoretically last forever. A stainless steel mouthpiece rusting like this is highly unusual, but easily fixed. Polish the area in question and it will not happen again.

The main reason this happens is due to the manufacturing process making stainless steel. The bar stock is made in huge quantities from large molten mixes of material. Occasionally the iron and other materials don't mix 100% (we are talking microns here) and when we machine the steel we uncover this little spot, and once it is polished Stainless steel and plain old steel look the same. Then, once you add a little moisture and time the steel will oxidize (rust) and you will see a bit of discoloration in this spot. I want to emphasis that we are talking microns of material, and something that will not adversely change a mouthpiece. Actually you could probably use your fingernail to remove the discoloration, and that would be the end of it.

The stainless we use does have nickel in it, but not as much as a previous post would lead you to think. The surgical grade stainless we use has been used for years inside the human body and has an extremely good record of human safety/reaction (actually better than silver plating)

Send the mouthpiece back and I will make it look like new again. No questions asked.

As for Clorox, I have never done that, however I'm surprised it changed the color of the mouthpiece; very interesting.

I look forward to hearing back from you, and I'm glad you like the sonic results you are getting with your new mouthpiece.

Ivan Giddings

[Matt G]

For anyone concerned with an easy to follow chart on reactivity, go here:

http://www.hoffmanonline.com/Technical_Info/

Click on the "Materials & Finsihes" link.

This will give you some information on Stainless 304 and 316 in a large variety of environments at different durations. For normal situations, Stainless is pretty good. According to the chart, bleach shouldn't be a problem.

You might want to print this out as it is very hard to read as it is an Adobe Acrobat file and the print is small in the view window.

[Ivan Giddings]

This is interesting information (and unless I'm misunderstanding it's not something we've dealt with before), thank you for sharing your concerns. Remember also that we're more than willing to repair or replace any of our mouthpieces that have defects caused/created during our manufacturing process (something like this would be covered under our limited warranty).

Please contact me via email if you would like a repair/replacement.

Ivan Giddings
gwmouthpieces@yahoo.com