Thin gauge flat products account for the greater portion of stainless-steel usage. Starting with a continuous-cast slab, such are manufactured by hot rolling and followed by for the thinnest gauges cold rolling. Irrespective of whether the final working operation is hot or cold rolling, the steel has subsequently to be heat treated by annealing and the surface cleansed of oxide scale by pickling in strong acids or by mechanical means. Stainless steel flats products can roughly be classified as plate with thicknesses in the range 5-200 mm and strip of thickness ranging from 5 mm down to a little as 50 µm.