Industries Served
Devices designed for medical use must meet extremely stringent design and fabrication criteria. Medical tools and instruments represent another major application for Sandmeyer’s stainless steel plate and plate products. Our steels are used to manufacture retractors, knives and other cutting and gouging instruments, forceps, tweezers, and scissors.
Stainless steels used for medical tools and instruments must have specific mechanical properties and be able to withstand both body fluids and the chemicals used for cleaning and sterilizing.
Stainless surgical instruments are often made from hardenable martensitic stainless steels. 17-4PH is used extensively in these applications.
304L/304 and 316L/316 are used to make instruments that do not require high strength and hardness. They have superior corrosion resistance to hardenable martensitic grades. 303 is a free machining modification of 304L/304. It is used where extensive machining is required to fabricate the finished parts.
