Profile: William Waugh (Edinburgh) Ltd. specializes in providing ferrous and non metals. Ferrous metals are often magnetic, but this property in itself is not sufficient to classify a metal as ferrous or non-ferrous. Austenitic stainless steel, a ferrous metal, is non-magnetic, while cobalt is magnetic but non-ferrous. Non Ferrous metals are those metals which do not contain iron . They are not magnetic and are usually more resistant to corrosion than ferrous metals. Most commonly used non ferrous metals are aluminum, copper, brass, lead, tin, gilding metal and zinc.