A surprising amount of what leaves our Burlington shop is stainless steel. Instrument carts for hospitals, jacketed vessels for nuclear medicine, water intakes for treatment stations, ductwork and tanks for food plants. It's the material people come to us for when the part has to survive washdowns, chemicals or decades of weather, and when it has to look right, because stainless is almost always left bare for everyone to see.
Stainless is also its own trade. It moves more under heat, it shows every weld, and it can be ruined by the same grinder you just used on mild steel. Here's what we build in it, what makes it different, and what to have in hand when you want a stainless quote.
What We Build in Stainless
Carts, tables and cabinets. Instrument carts for medical settings, mobile cabinets and work tables for labs, kitchens and clean production areas. Built to size, welds finished smooth, castors rated for the load.
Vessels and jackets. Some of the most demanding work in the shop: stainless jackets for nuclear medicine equipment, nitrogen freezing jackets for the nuclear industry, and jacketed tanks where a liner has to hold temperature around a vessel. Fit-up and weld integrity are everything on these, which is why they're TIG welded by certified welders and checked before anything ships.
Process and plant equipment. Stainless ductwork, furnace shells, sight glass frames, pipe stands and water intakes for treatment stations. Where a part mates to existing equipment we machine it in-house to +/- .001.
Rolled and formed work. Cylinders, rings and cones rolled from customer material or ours, in stainless and mild steel both. If your part starts as a flat sheet and ends up round, we roll it here rather than sending it out.
Why Stainless Is Different to Work With
It never gets painted, so the weld is the finish. On mild steel, primer and paint hide a multitude of sins. On stainless, the weld bead, the heat tint and the grain of the finish are all on display forever. That's why visible stainless work gets TIG welded and then ground, blended or polished as part of the job, not as an afterthought. Our finishing shop handles that in-house.
It contaminates easily. Run a grinding disc from carbon steel across a stainless panel and you've embedded particles that will bloom into rust spots within weeks. A shop that does real stainless work keeps dedicated brushes, discs and handling for it. We learned that lesson decades ago; your part benefits from it.
It moves under heat. Stainless expands more than mild steel when welded, so thin panels and long seams want to warp. Controlling that comes down to fixturing, sequence and an experienced hand, which is the difference between a flat food-grade table and one that rocks.
Who Buys Stainless Fabrication
Food and beverage plants across Burlington, Hamilton and Oakville are the steady customers: washdown environments eat plain steel, so guards, tables, chutes and ductwork all end up stainless. Medical and lab equipment builders come for carts and enclosures. Water treatment and environmental contractors need intakes, skids and tanks that sit in water for decades. And homeowners find us too, usually for a stainless barbecue frame, boat part or railing bracket that a general shop won't touch. Have a look at the range of it on our work page.
Getting a Stainless Quote
Same as any job in the shop: bring the part, a photo or a sketch with rough dimensions to 3485 Mainway, or send it through the contact form. Tell us the environment it lives in — washdown, chemical, outdoor, sanitary — because that decides the grade and the finish, and those decide the price. We quote material, shop time and finishing as a real number, line by line, and if mild steel with a coating would honestly serve you better for less, we'll say so.