Don’t microwaves penetrate metal at all? — DR, Tampa, FL
If the metal is a good conductor, then the microwaves don’t penetrate more than a fraction of a millimeter. That’s because the microwave electric fields push on the metal’s mobile electrons and those electrons immediately rearrange in such a way that they cancel the microwave fields inside the metal. Only the skin of the metal responds to the fields and it shields the rest of the metal from the microwaves.