pertecting a polished blade?

[kansas stik man]

well i have quenched my second blade and have it polished to a mirror finish.  i need to epoxy the scales on but after the epoxy sets up and its time to sand the wood down to the metal how do i pretect the polished areas since i cant go back and touch up around the wood?  and will the acitone mess up to polished areas?

[Lin Rhea]

KSM,
    Not much you can do but be real careful. Now. Next time temporarily pin the scales on the blade, shape the handle and get it basically finished. When you're happy with the handle, push the pins out removing the scales, do your polishing of the blade, reassemble putting permanent pins in being particularly careful peining them. Acitone wont hurt steel. Use cotton balls or something soft because the wrong rag might mess it up.

[kansas stik man]

so on the pins do they have to be peined?  or cann i just leave them?  ive already figured out why polished blades are not as common as satin blades lol.

[Lin Rhea]

I'll answer your last question.
You can just leave them, but I prefer to pein. Even if I sand them flush, I pein. I like a mechanical bond too.

I feel like I have not made myself clear on the first question or else I'm not understanding your question.

[kansas stik man]

well on my first knife i made the scales larger than the tang and then after epoxy cured i used my belt sander to take the wood down to the metal and then just a tiny bit of metal with it to make them both perfectly flush.  but if i have the spine of the blade polished how do i go about getting a perfectly flush handle with out using the sander and messing up the polished metal.  i was thinking maybe that the spine does not need to be polished but that will look bad. so im all ears lin and thanks for advice.

[Lin Rhea]

OK. Next time dont polish the blade till after you sand the scales flush. Go through all of the grits till your ready to polish, then push out the temporary pins, disassemble, polish, reassemble carefully and permanently. Work the pins by hand.

This is the best way if you use a polished finsh or you can change the finish to something that does not require taking it apart.

[kansas stik man]

what about excess epoxy that comes out while doing the glue up?  how do i go about keeping it clean ?  sorry to be such a pain but i guess i just dont get it?