Hairline Cracks In Boil Kettle

So, about 3 months ago I got a couple brand new Blichmann Boilermakers as I was starting to assemble all the bits and pieces to get into all grain brewing. When they came in the boxes were fine and after a quick look over everything, I didn't notice anything.
Then I finally got around to my first brew and when I was scrubbing out the boil kettle, lightly with a nylon dish-brush-thingy, I noticed a couple hairline cracks on the inside of the pot! There was no leaking or weeping going on during the fairly mild boil, but I'm wondering if this is a fairly common occurrence and fine as long as it ain't leakin' or if this is something I should contact them about.
I've done a number of searches about this subject but can't find anything other than cracks caused by welding, but the cracks I've found are on the sides of the pot nowhere near any welds.
Any input would be great!

Cracks would leak. Let's see a pic.

It would be fine as long as it is not leaking but with that said stainless should never do that with regular brewing use.

Cracks in stainless steel. Like brewingmeister said pics please!

Guessing it's scratches or something...they don't get the nickname blingman for nothing.

Well, I can't seem to get ImageShack to acknowledge my existence and I've been hacking at it for an hour and it's almost 2am so I'll try and post it in the morn' but it's definitely sharper than a scratch unless someone was putting some serious pressure on it with a box cutter during a very slight earthquake.

I think I've got it...all I've got is a 1st gen Iphone as a camera right now so this is all I can seem to get. It's amazingly hard to focus with these things and this is all I could get tonight. About a third of the image from the left is a vertical, somewhat jagged line which is definitely more than a scratch. There's another slightly smaller one that I couldn't seem to get a focus on, but they are definitely sharp enough that they are not simply scratches and dragging a fingernail across them can be felt like a glass edge.
[IMG="http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/7104/30668729.jpg"]

Pictures. SS is not easily cracked.

looks like I can't "post" a pic till I'm a premium member, but copy/paste:
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/7104/30668729.jpg
and that'll show what I'm talking about.

BonsaiBrewa said:

Click to expand...

Honestly, it's still kind of hard to see, but if anything it actually looks to me like it's just banged up a bit.

Doesn't look like a crack to me. It's more like an inclusion in the sheet steel that got rolled out. See if you find a similar line on the outside of the pot. Look closely, as the outside has been polished more and will likely be harder to find. Sometimes they go through the steel, sometimes they end within the sheet.

I bought a cheap Chinese pot a couple of years ago that had an inclusion visible on both the inside and outside, wept enough to put a stain on the outside.

Take a good photo through a magnifying glass and email Blichmann. You said you could feel something like a "glass edge" with your finger, so it's probably not just a visible inclusion. I wouldn't want an irregularity like that in an expensive piece of equipment that I plan on heating up and cooling down repeatedly for years, all the while holding sticky, scalding fluid.

ChuckO said:

...I bought a cheap Chinese pot a couple of years ago that had an inclusion visible on both the inside and outside, wept enough to put a stain on the outside.

Click to expand...

That's kind of what got me so concerned when I found it goin' on with these expensive American Made pots. I got a cheap Chinese conical fermenter and returned the first one because it had a number of these kinds of tears and one of them would weep enough to make it un-usable. The "cracks" on my Blichmann don't show through to the outside at all and there wasn't any weeping going on but it kinda freaked me out since I guess I can't talk so much trash on Chinese manufacturing anymore!

AndrewD said:

...photo through a magnifying glass

Click to expand...

Good Idea! Here are some links using that process:
Here's the bigger one
[IMG="http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/6204/bigoney.jpg"]
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/6204/bigoney.jpg

The smaller one
[IMG="http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/9403/smalltear.jpg"]
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/9403/smalltear.jpg

And another little inclusion where the base is welded on I guess
[IMG="http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/299/inclusion.jpg"]
http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/299/inclusion.jpg

An "inclusion" is a bit of foreign material that has erroneously found its way into the working material. This is not that. It looks like a scratch, but the picture isn't high enough resolution to see. Either way if it's a Blichmann I wouldn't accept anything less than perfect, unless you bought it as one of their dinged or scratched models. My opinion is that they have some sort of an assembly fixture they put the kettle on to install the fixtures, and it got scratched on that.

Alright. I'll borrow an actual camera, fine tune my photography skills and send some pics to Blichmann to see what they think on the matter.
Thanks to all!

Let us know what Blichmann says......
Good luck

That third picture looks as if there was a weld problem where the sidewall sheet was welded to the formed bottom piece.

At least the pot that I bought was a 5 gallon pot for $5.95 and the store exchanged it for me with no problem. I would hope that Blichmann will make up for it. Inclusion, lamination or scratch, it isn't right.

I found some of these in my new 15g. I cannot feel any edge or irregularity; it seems purely cosmetic. My only concern is repeated expansion/contraction over time. What ever happened with yours?