What Your Kitchen Is Made Of: Steel Grades, Titanium and Glass
What 304, 201, 316 and 430 actually mean, why PVD is a coat and not a metal, and how tempered glass differs from the ceramic glass under your pan.
In 1912 a Sheffield metallurgist called Harry Brearley was trying to stop gun barrels wearing out. He added chromium to steel, noticed his samples refused to rust, and gave the world the material that now lines most kitchen sinks. More than a century later, the spec sheets have filled up with numbers and acronyms: 304, 201, PVD, titanium alloy, ceramic glass. They look like jargon. Most of them are simply answers to a practical question about a particular part of the kitchen.
The trick is to match each word to a job. A sink spends its life wet, salty and scrubbed. A hob surface has to survive sudden heat. A control knob is handled a dozen times a night, often with damp, oily fingers. The right material for one is not automatically the right one for another, and the most expensive option is not always the best value.
Here is a plain guide to reading the labels, and where each material turns up in Newmatic’s range.
The short version
Read three things separately: the base metal, its grade and its surface finish. Stainless grades behave differently, PVD is a coating rather than a grade, and tempered glass and ceramic glass are two different materials.
The four grades you will see
Grade
What it is
Worth knowing
304 stainless steel
Chromium-nickel workhorse
Good corrosion resistance with basic care
201 stainless steel
Less nickel, more manganese
More economical; less resistant to salt than 304
316 stainless steel
304 with added molybdenum
For salty or coastal conditions
430 stainless steel
Ferritic, nickel-free, magnetic
Fine for dry, low-stress parts
In this article
Why stainless steel stays stainless
Stainless steel is not one metal but a family of iron alloys that contain at least 10.5 per cent chromium. The chromium reacts with oxygen in the air to form a film only a few nanometres thick, far too thin to see. That film is what keeps rust away, and its party trick is that it repairs itself when scratched, as long as there is oxygen around.
This explains most stainless steel care advice. Anything that stops the film re-forming, such as salt left to dry in a puddle, bleach, a wire-wool pad that leaves specks of ordinary steel behind, or a wet sponge left in the same corner for days, gives corrosion a chance to start. A quick rinse and a wipe after the evening wash-up does more for a sink than any polish.
The grade is only part of the story. Sheet thickness, how the bowl is pressed, the quality of the welds and the finish all change how a sink sounds, flexes and cleans. Two sinks stamped with the same number can feel quite different when you lean on the edge or drop a pan in.
So ask for the grade in writing rather than judging by shine. A mirror polish proves nothing about corrosion resistance, and a heavy feel is not a grade.
304 and 201: the sink question
Grade 304 is the default stainless steel of kitchens, labs and food factories. It contains around 18 per cent chromium and 8 per cent nickel, and that nickel is a large part of why it copes so well with water, food acids and cleaning products. For a sink that sees heavy daily use, it is the safe, well-proven choice.
Grade 201 came out of a nickel shortage. It was formally standardised in the mid-1950s, when nickel was being diverted to military use, and swaps much of the nickel for manganese: roughly 3.5 to 5.5 per cent nickel against 5.5 to 7.5 per cent manganese. The result costs less and still looks and works like stainless steel. Its resistance to salt and chloride corrosion is lower than 304’s, so it rewards a little more care.
Newmatic’s catalogue lists 201 stainless steel for sink models including the Single45 and Double82, while other sinks in the range use 304. That gives buyers a real choice. Compare bowl size, depth and construction alongside the grade.
A small prep sink in a secondary kitchen and the main sink in a family of five lead very different lives. If yours will spend evenings full of salty pasta water and soaking roasting tins, 304 is money well spent. If it will mostly see rinsed glasses, 201 may be all you need.
316, 430 and the fridge-magnet myth
Grade 316 is essentially 304 with molybdenum added, which makes it noticeably better at resisting salt. You see it on boats, seaside railings and outdoor kitchens. For an indoor kitchen it is rarely essential, though a house a few hundred metres from the sea is one place where it earns its keep.
Grade 430 belongs to a different branch of the family, called ferritic. It has little or no nickel, which makes it cheaper and magnetic. It is perfectly good for dry, lightly stressed parts such as some appliance panels and trims. Finding it in a component is not, on its own, a sign of poor quality.
That magnetism is why the fridge-magnet test is so popular and so unreliable. A magnet will stick firmly to 430 and barely to 304, but bending and pressing 304 into a sink bowl can make parts of it slightly magnetic. A magnet tells you something, but not the grade.
Treat 316 and 430 as useful background for reading the wider market rather than assuming they apply to any particular Newmatic product. For the item you are buying, ask which material is used in the bowl, panel or control in front of you.
PVD: a colour, not a grade
PVD stands for physical vapour deposition. In a vacuum chamber, metal is vaporised and settles on the steel as an extremely thin, hard film. That is how a sink becomes gunmetal, black, gold or copper without being painted. Newmatic lists PVD-treated stainless steel in parts of its sink range.
The steel underneath still matters. A description such as PVD 304 tells you two things, the base metal and the finish, and both are worth knowing. A black sink is not a different grade of steel just because it has changed colour.
The coating also has its own care rules. An abrasive pad that does no harm to bare brushed steel can dull or scratch a coloured finish. Use the cleaning method given for that product, and keep the scouring cream for the oven trays.
Think about what each colour hides and shows. Dark finishes can make limescale and soap marks more obvious in hard-water areas, while brushed silver forgives almost everything. Look at a sample next to your tap and worktop, and imagine it on a Thursday, not just on installation day.
Titanium, and the knob in your hand
Titanium is prized for being strong, light and very resistant to corrosion, which is why it turns up in aircraft and surgical implants. Titanium alloys mix it with small amounts of other metals to tune those properties. Be careful, though: “titanium” can describe a colour or a coating as well as a material.
Newmatic’s catalogue refers to titanium-alloy details on selected Professional Series controls and spacers. When comparing a specific model, check which part that description covers. A titanium-alloy knob does not make the whole hob titanium.
The same goes for finish names in general. Ask whether a name describes the look, a coating or the metal itself. The specification sheet is more reliable than the marketing name.
Then pick the knob up, figuratively at least. Can you turn it with wet or oily fingers? Are the markings easy to read when a pan is steaming above them? Is there room between the control and the pan supports? A good material only matters if it makes the control easier to live with.
Two kinds of glass, two different jobs
Tempered or toughened glass is ordinary glass that has been heated and then cooled very quickly, which locks the surface into compression. It is roughly four to five times stronger than standard float glass, and if it does break, it shatters into small, blunt pieces rather than long shards. That makes it a sensible choice for oven doors and appliance fronts.
Ceramic glass, often called glass-ceramic, is a different material altogether. It is made by carefully crystallising glass so that it barely expands when heated, which lets it cope with a cold spot and a red-hot zone side by side. The best-known version, Schott’s Ceran, was introduced in 1971 and is rated to handle temperature swings of up to 700°C.
Newmatic’s specification for the PM932FC-PRO identifies ceramic glass. Elsewhere in the range, check the glass type model by model. A glossy black surface looks much the same either way.
Both types dislike the same things: a heavy pan dropped on an edge, sliding cast iron with grit underneath, and being used as a chopping board. Clean sugary spills promptly, as directed, because melted sugar can bond to a hot cooking surface. Beyond that, glass is there to be used.
One appliance, many materials
The PM950STX-PRO shows why it helps to read an appliance part by part. Newmatic specifies 304 stainless steel for this 90 cm gas hob. But the pan supports, burners and controls each do different jobs, and the headline steel grade does not describe every piece of the assembly.
Sinks are the same. The grade of the bowl matters, but so do the corner radius, the drainer, the waste fitting and how it is mounted. A beautifully finished bowl is still a nuisance if your largest roasting tray will not lie flat in it.
Materials can also link a kitchen together. Brushed steel can tie a sink to a hob; dark glass can echo an oven door; a calm worktop stops them competing. Coordinating does not mean every surface has to match.
Our kitchen sink and tap guide turns this into a working plan, with bowl size, tap reach and the counter space you need on either side.
Spend where the kitchen works hardest
In the showroom, ask three questions of every material: what is it, where is it used, and how should it be cleaned? Add dimensions and build quality, and the choice becomes much clearer than a simple premium-or-budget label.
Put the money where the wear is. The main sink deserves more thought than a decorative panel. A knob you turn every night deserves a proper feel. And the right hob surface is simply the one designed for that hob, fitted properly.
Keep the care instructions somewhere everyone who cleans the kitchen can find them. A consistent, gentle routine does far more than an occasional attack with a strong cleaner after a mark has already set in.
At Newmatic, you can compare the grades, finishes and glass types on the actual products, side by side. Choose the combination that suits the way you cook and the look you want. Knowing the materials is not about memorising numbers. It is about knowing what you are paying for.
