Hello,
It is to my understanding, from what I've read here and in other forums, that after you forge stainless steel (I'll be using mainly 316 and 304), you need to anneal and passivate it to maximize the stainlessness. But I've seen a few videos and read of people that do not anneal it after forging. Or some people that say, if you want to keep the black hammer marks on (if you want this kind of finish), not to passivate it, as they will be removed.
My question is, since I will be using stainless to make mostly BBQ tools, pendants, bottle openers and such, how much of the stainlessness will be lost IF I skip these processes?
As soon as I fix my forge I will compare how an annealed+passivated, just annealed, and brand new piece behave in saltwater or something like that, but I was wondering if someone has already answered this question.