forging stainless ?

[Belstain]

Are stainless steels really all that hard to forge?
I want to make an integral knife out of stainless and I'm not into grinding away a ton of steel to do it. It will be a fishing knife so stain resistance is a must. Am I just wasting my time or is it doable?

 

[Bruce Evans]

Yes stainless is forgeable,Keep the heat above critical and DON'T Hit it when it starts to cool below critical.That is because it is hardening.It will be a slow go for you to forge itbut with some patience and some practice you can do it.
The Book "The modern Blade smith" by Hirisoulous tells you how to forge stainless also.
Bruce

 

[Dangus]

Of course stainless has more varieties than TCBY has flavors. There is one type I encountered a while back which had a unique property of being completely unforgeable when you took it past critical. You could forge it just after it started going red, but if you went over critical at all, it got really brittle and would break under the hammer. Then it would stay like this until you annealed it very intensely(like leaving it in a wood fire overnight after taking it past critical and letting it soak).