The SS really lends itself to a rustic, aged appearance - I showed it to my father and he initially thought it was an antique. The engravings on the inside (coordinates and a BCS script) really came out crisp after some light sanding, I was really impressed by that. The ID did shrink by a little over 1%, but some careful sanding took care of that. Overall, I am extremely happy of how it turned out!
I should have done more research on this, but the bronze infused stainless will leave rust marks on my finger after a shower or washing my hands. I'm seeing how effective a sealant will be.
The sealant seems to be working - no rust is forming. I had applied a few light coats of superglue, with the only downside being that the ring feels like plastic. Because of this I won't be using stainless in any rings or the like.
Yeah, I looked into plating, but I decided it would be more worthwhile to use a higher quality base material (like silver) instead of adding cost and complexity to a cheaper material.
Some form of enamel coating would probably be ideal. I've never seen this issue though, maybe it was something weird with the batch? Silver is still easily the process most suited to jewelry. It's based on the lost-wax method which is widely used for exactly that. But you have to add your own texturing.