Stainless Steel Machining Services in Los Angeles

Stainless steel is the shop's highest-volume material and still the one that exposes weak process control. The austenitic grades — 304 and 316 in particular — work harden under the cut, so a tool that dwells or exits and re-enters leaves a hardened layer that wrecks the following pass. Low thermal conductivity keeps heat at the edge, chips are tough and stringy and will wrap a turret if evacuation is not controlled, and the precipitation-hardening grades 17-4 PH and 15-5 PH change hardness and size with heat treat condition, so the same print machines differently in H900 than in solution-annealed stock.

We match the process to the grade rather than to the family name. 303 runs fast for free-machining work; 304 and 316 run with heavier feed per revolution and constant engagement so the edge stays beneath the hardened layer, high-pressure coolant at the shear zone, and chip breakers selected per operation. The PH grades are machined with the heat treat condition called out on the setup sheet, with allowance for growth through hardening and finishing after heat treat where the print demands it. Small-diameter parts run on the Citizen and Tsugami Swiss cells complete off the bar; larger work runs on the DMG MORI, Okuma and Takisawa turning centers and the milling department. Passivation and other outside processing are managed with our approved vendors.