AS above the knurling tool is great advice, its the same one i use and Lee is dead right about the pressure they need to operate, that particular model is a good way to avoid.
Stainless will need to be cut SLOWLY and with plenty of lube. You need low RPM and a relativity big cut, taking to shallow a cut will heat it too much as you will be almost polishing the surface with your tool and you will harden the metal.
If you get blue swarf or a screeching sound its too hot.
Stainless is tricky at times
With the knurling DONT expect to be able to knurl something to an exact diameter.
This is for two reasons
Firstly after knurling the piece WILL BE BIGGER than before you knurled it
and secondly unless you know the exact pitch of your tool, chances are it wont knurl properly and you will have to skim a bit off.
Heres a quick start with the knurling.
Get a nice smooth surface quite near finished size.
Get knurling tool on piece sat as square as possible ( only need one wheel touching for now so dont worry about clamping the wheels together just yet)
Rotate chuck BY HAND one revolution and you should have a very faint set of lines in the work peice.
If not push the tool up a bit harder until you can just see the pattern that will be left ( dont worry if its only one set of lines for now a bit like this > /////////// )
if you have one very light band of line around the peice rotate one more full revolution and see if the 2nd set of lines have landed on top of the others - chances are you now have even more lines in between the old ones.
This is because the diameter of the work and the diameter of the knurling wheels arnt in proportion.
Take just enough metal off that you can no longer see the line left by the knurling tool and repeat until eventually the knurling tool only leaves one clean set of lines and the pattern is no longer doubled up on itself.
The closer you get this bit the sharper look your knurling will have.
one you've got it, set both the wheel on the tool top and bottom of the work, try and get the work directly in between the wheel so that when you apply pressure it doesnt want to push the work out one way or the other.
Double check everything is clamped nice and tight and knurling wheels ARE CLEAN, cake the lot it lube or oil and off you go on the slowest RPM you have, If you have an autofeed use it, it will be smoother, if not wind it the tool along the work as steadily as you can.
Just NIP the wheels to the work do not over-tighten them - provided you dont run off the end of the work you can always give them another nip then go in reverse to deepen the pattern.
There is a lovely guide to all this with pics somewhere on the net but I cant for the life of me find it ( or remember whats it was named)
There is also some handy formulas to calculate the size of the work has to be to get perfect knurling.
