OK... it's hard to work with. Noted.
He and/or I should play around with easier types of iron/steel first. Noted.
Hand forged frying pans? Sounds fun...with the limitations above noted.
The other options for this scrap that are non-forged would involve cutting, bending and welding...which also are non-trivial. Full disclosure, I've shunned buying a stick welder, why? Because I want to do my welding with oxy-acetylene for a couple of reasons:
-OA makes its own shielding gas.
-OA welding consists of using a torch with one hand and holding filler in the other; which is much like TIG...which...to me...is the ultimate welder that I want to buy some day (with a plasma cutter, since we're in fantasy land)
-OA welding can, with proper technique and fluxes (in my understanding) weld more combinations of alloys and thicknesses than, say, stick or MIG
But the main, super secret, motivation is that I want to learn techniques that would allow me to make something(s) cool, aesthetically pleasing and/or useful from this stainless that I have.
As for old farm implements: Yup, that kind of stuff, I have around as well.
I've also read that one should, at the beginning, work with some new pieces that are known alloys to reduce the number of variables with learning your technique...for instance...if you try a quenching technique for alloy A on a piece of scrap that is actually alloy B... it doesn't work...you then fuss with your quenching technique...but really you're off in the weeds; because you don't know the alloy.