316L for a salt pot?

C

CDH

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Jun 8, 2007
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I've been reading all I can in preparation for trying to build a salt pot. The actual construction is down the road a bit, but I am scrounging materials as I can find them.

I have a chance to snag a healthy length (over 3' if I want it all) of 4" nominal sch 40 stainless steel (316L) pipe with an end cap already welded to it. This is used industrial pipe with no obvious scaling, pitting, or major discoloration.

What kind of life could I expect from it as a salt pot? Most of the plans I see call for the pot to be much thicker. Sch 40 is about 1/8" thick IIRC. This will be a first unit obviously, and since it will be low volume and a first experiment, cheap is the order of the day.
 
That should work. Schedule 80 ,or thicker, is real nice, but what you have for free (or cheap) will do fine. Unless you are going to use it for long sessions, it will last a long time
Stacy.
 
My tubes are about 3/8 thick.

You could use plain steel too. I've seen commercial HT using plain steel tubes. I used plain steel in salt pots at first and when it came time to refurbish (a few years of moderate use), I decided to replace them with stainless.
My plain steel tubes were pretty beaten up--very scaly and visibly eroded, but they held up for a long time.
 
My low temp tubes are thin walled carbon steel. If you are working with a gas fired unit you could give it a try with high temp. IF you are using an electric heat source then I would never go back to attempting non-stainless steels. I went through way too many tubes and saw how quickly those salts could make and opening in non stainless. Some folks get lucky, Tim Z. ran some iron tubes for a surprisingly long time and all I could do is shake my head whenever I watched him heat them up. I replaced my even heat kilns twice due to salt getting out of those tubes and if you know the price of a 4 foot Even Heat setup you will know why I have no use for high temp iron tubes. Cost aside, since the liquified salts and their vapors are highly conductive, allowing them to get to know 220V electric elements will ad much more interest to your life that you want.

Now that I use gas for high temp, I must admit that even my stainless pipes have leaked once or twice but with gas it just doesn't really matter.
 
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