I was in the garage fixing my drill press and ended up deciding to work some more on this. Then it got late... So, here's what's going on at this point. I drilled the holes through the tang into the wood scale. Then I matched up the two scales and put them in the clamps and proceeded to drill through the first, into the second.
Then, because I've been known to really screw things up, I marked both scales so I knew which way was up...
I cut some temporary pins and pushed them flush on one side. Then off to the band saw where I cut OUTSIDE the line I'd traced on one of the scales. Ask me what happens when you try to cut too close to the line... Everything went fine on this one and you end up with something like this:
Then I put one scale on the knife and figure out what I want the front of it to look like. After I get it drawn how I want, I take it to the belt sander and SLOWLY grind the profile I want. If you're not careful, you buzz right past where you want to go and get a shorter scale, or get to start over...yup-I know about that one, too. Then, I put the pins back in both scales and even the second up with the first:
I took the front of both scales up to 400 on the belt, then started hand sanding. After not much work at all, things start looking fairly nice.
A bit more prep and it'll be time to epoxy it all together. Then, profile the scales down to the tang and contour things nicely. Last will be (hopefully) my first domed pins.
Jeremy