How is steel made? There is already an answer here in answerbag http://www.answerbag.com/q_view.php/3179 Also here is a detailed, step-by-step with Flash illustrations: http://www.jjjtrain.com/vms/engineering_metallurgy.html#4 Here are the different methods: "How is steel made? Steel is made via two basic routes - from raw materials - iron ore, limestone and coke by the blast furnace and basic oxygen furnace route or from scrap via the electric arc furnace (EAF) method. The raw material approach is known as the integrated route and about 60% of steel produced today is made by this method. The second technique is much easier and faster since it only requires scrap steel. Recycled steel is introduced into a furnace and re-melted along with some other additions to produce the end product. About 34% of steel produced in 2003 was produced via the EAF route." http://www.worldsteel.org/faq_what.php "Stainless steel is essentially a low carbon steel which contains chromium at 10% or more by weight. It is this addition of chromium that gives the steel its unique stainless, corrosion resisting properties." http://www.ssina.com/stainless/index.htm Burney

One of the other cool ways that stainless, or other high chromium alloys are made differently involves the use of AOD processing (Argon Oxygen Decarburization). Steel, especially stainless, needs a low carbon content. This is usually done by blowing oxygen through the molten steel to remove the carbon, turning it into CO2 which leaves the steel as it solidifies. Yet this also burns out the expensive chromium. It has been found that modifying the partial pressure of oxygen by mixing with argon causes the kinetics of the chemical reaction to change, so that the carbon is burned out preferentially to the chromium! Who'd have guessed the relative free energies of reaction would be a function of pressure, eh? Anyway, with AOD you can make stainless steel FAR cheaper than with older methods.