Hey guys, I am new here. I heard about this forum from Thomas Powers. A few weeks ago, I picked up a nice chunk of steel from him to make an improvised anvil. I hope to get into forging, but so far I am cutting my teeth on stock removal. I purchased a nice Damascus blank off of eBay for this bushcraft knife that I am making. I've profiled the blank, ground the bevel and heat treated the knife so far. I cleaned it up after heat treating, and etched the blade for a bit. So, now I am ready to work on the handle. I was just going to epoxy and pin the scales and then shape them to fit, but it occurred to me that if I take that route, I will lose the Damascus pattern on the spine when I sand the wood to match the knife blank. I can't imagine trying to re-etch the spine after gluing on the sides.
So I am thinking that I should pin the wood sides to the knife dry, sand and profile the handle, then drive the pins out (hoping not to get any blow out on the face of the wood). Then I would re-etch the spine, end and belly(not sure the right term) of the handle portion, and finally epoxy the scales on.
Does this make sense? Is there another better process?
Thanks for any tips you have!