I've made quite a few micarta handles.
I cut the micarta with a hacksaw (a jig or scroll saw will also work), I do some shaping with an extra-coarse file, and I finish up using a 12" disc sander, and a sanding drum in my drill press on the highest speed to get even edges. But such power tools aren't necessary. Before I bought a disc sander I performed all shaping with files, and the scales still came out good.
A belt sander will also work.
As for attaching the scales to a fixed-blade, you can use just epoxy alone (although that would not be my method), or you can use pins, or a combination of epoxy and pins, or you can use screws and threaded posts. I like being able to remove handle scales whenever I want, so I use screws and threaded posts.
In order to use pins or screws w/threaded posts, there needs to be holes in the tang of the blade. If there are no holes, holes can be made using a drill press and a carbide drill bit.
Depending on the type of tang your knife has (full tang or a narrow tang), flat slab handles might not be wide enough to create a full enough handle. On a full-tang knife, flat handle slabs can be attached flat and flush against the tang with the tang visible along the edges between the slabs (like a sandwich with handle slabs on each side of the tang)
But if the knife has a narrow tang, and you want to use handle slabs, you might have to mill out (hollow out) the handle slabs in such a way so that the tang is completely enclosed within the slabs.
The third option, if the knife has a narrow tang, is to use a solid block/rod of micarta, drill out a hole down through the block/rod, insert the tang into the hole, and use epoxy/pins/screws to fix it in place.
