I added some trivia to my talk about The Making of an Icon Thursday at the Buder Branch Library of the St. Louis Public Library. That trivia, specifically, was about the 886 tons of quarter-inch stainless steel plate that graces the exterior of the Gateway Arch.
It’s called Type 304 Stainless Steel, and it’s used in such everyday items as pots and pans, silverware, and sinks, and more unusual things such as milking machines and breweries. To keep the shine and prevent rust, 65 to 74 percent of stainless steel is iron, about 18 percent is chromium and eight percent is nickel. Other ingredients are manganese, phosphorus, sulfur, silicon, carbon and nitrogen. It’s a guaranteed formula to make it glisten in the sun.