Mild, Stainless, or Pre-Galvanized: How to Choose the Right Steel for Your Display Application

When choosing the right construction material for retail displays, brands have a variety of options. Sheet metal, wire, tubing, and lumber offer their own unique benefits or advantages, but steel can help you create durable displays with a more polished, high-end look and finish. 

Whereas other display construction materials can be difficult to recycle at the end of their service life, steel is a 100% recyclable material, which helps support your sustainability efforts and reduces your company’s carbon footprint.  

However, the challenge brands face is understanding the different types of steel in order to select the most ideal kind for their specific retail application. Mild, stainless, and pre-galvanized are the most common types of steel used in retail fixtures and displays, but the question is: How do you decide which kind of steel is right for your display needs?

Here, we’ll look at each type of steel to help you determine which kind is right for your retail fixture or display.

Mild steel is ideal for highly custom retail displays

Mild steel — also known as low-carbon steel — is a type of carbon steel with a relatively low amount of carbon, usually between 0.05% and 0.25%. As a result, mild steel is more ductile and easy to form, shape, and weld, especially compared to other types of steel. The low carbon composition of mild steel makes it easy to machine holes, shapes, or cutouts, which makes it ideal for highly custom projects or applications. 

Even with a low percentage of carbon, mild steel still retains superior durability and reliability compared with other materials. Mild steel will not crack, warp, twist, split, or rot with consistent, long-term use, and mild steel can be treated to withstand corrosion and rust from exposure to rain, wind, sunlight, and high temperatures.

With exceptional versatility and reliability, mild steel is ideal for creating indoor displays that require a high level of machining in order to achieve specific shapes or contours. What’s more, mild steel is a budget-friendly material for brands that need to make the most of their display dollars.

Stainless steel is best for outdoor displays and fixtures

Stainless steel is actually a generic term for any steel that is an iron and chromium alloy with at least 10.5% of the alloy consisting of chromium. Stainless steel can contain a wide variety of other additives based on the desired strength or durability, and some common additives include nickel, carbon, manganese, carbon, and copper. 

Because of its ability to withstand environmental conditions like heat and high levels of humidity, stainless steel is ideal for indoor and outdoor display applications. Additionally, stainless steel is easy to clean and is less susceptible to the buildup of harmful bacteria. This makes stainless steel an ideal construction material for food or beverage displays, or those in high-traffic retail environments. 

Plus, stainless steel does not require a lot of maintenance to help ensure a long, reliable service life, and stainless steel rods, bars, and tubing can be coated to preserve the structural integrity of the steel, increase the lifespan of your display, and maximize your ROI.

Pre-galvanized steel is ideal for indoor or controlled environments

The galvanizing process involves treating steel or iron with a protective zinc coating to help protect against rust or other environmental degradation. Typically, this involves dipping the steel  assembly in a zinc bath for as complete a coating as possible. Pre-galvanizing utilizes the same process, except the coating is executed on a component level, as opposed to coating the entire assembly. 

The pre-galvanizing process is usually less costly in part because a thinner layer of coating can be applied, but the thin layer of coating does make pre-galvanized steel more prone to rust or corrosion at a faster rate compared to stainless or mild steel. As such, pre-galvanized steel is more ideal for fixtures and displays that are used in more controlled environments, or those with a much smaller variance in terms of temperature or humidity. 

At Franklin Display Group, we have the expertise, tools, and resources to create custom retail fixtures and displays using the kind of steel that best suits your application. Our custom metal fabrication program uses high-quality steel and state-of-the-art technology to produce fixtures and displays that help differentiate your brand from your competitors.

Learn more about how our custom steel fabrication capabilities can help you take your displays and fixtures to the next level.