To better answer your question about Stainless. Stainless is a another beast when it comes to heat treat and tempering. High Carbon steels like 1095 which I use are relatively easy. The process I use is they are brought up to austenite state (non magnetic) and then air cooled. Then its do it again 3 times. Then it brought up to temp again and held there for just a few minutes and it goes into a oil quench with preheated oil. It stay in the oil for 20 seconds or so. The steel is now in martensite state which is VERY brittle. To remove the brittleness It goes into a tempering oven for 2, 1 hour cycles. Temp range between 400 - 450 depending on the hardness you want. Temps are fairly critical.
Stainless is totally different. Heat treat the temps are a lot higher and the blade needs to be held at that temp for long periods of time. Depending on the stainless used temps range in the 2000+ range and the hold times can be up to an hour. Some you even need to hold at lower temps for 45 minutes to an hour, cool it and do it again with a higher temp. Some take several cycles of this. The temp are VERY critical for heat treating. To get these temps and hold for that period of time one would need a heat treat oven/kiln. These start at the 2K range and that's more than this retired guy can afford. I'd love to have one but then I'd have to be selling knives in the 400-500 dollar range. I believe I am better off sticking with what I'm doing with high carbon. Also high carbon is a lot tougher than Stainless but yes they do require a little more care. I did run across a stainless from Sweden that I believe I can heat treat and temper with the Eq. I currently have. But I've been busy getting inventory ready for local shows and orders. Once caught up I'm going to give the stainless a try. This is the short answer believe me I don't know it all and there are so many different methods and opinions on how it's done, but all agree stainless isn't easy.