I've spent a large part of my week preparing this blade - without realizing that order of operations exist for a reason. I should have roughed it - and then moved to fitting the handle. Getting the blade finished has made it tricky to do the handle with a finished blade. I had to take the edge back to profile the heel a little after - and afraid of etching the blade with tape, I left it exposed, and scratched both sides a ton (1500 grit is pretty delicate..). Also had to square the shoulders and remove decarb from HT'ing - so the file jig left a nice blemish. Sigh.
I spent all Sunday working on a brass ferrule (or guard?, I guess it would be a guard?) - that I scrapped because I overfiled it (I have no idea how, I was going so slow I felt, 8 hours...)
I decided to scrap the idea and make a 3 piece frame handle. G10 frame, and Mexican blanket micarta. It's a blade for a friend so I don't think he's going to kill me for the scratches. He'll give good feedback too on my 3rd knife. The frame handle is going to fit snug as a bug, really happy with the results at the moment. I'll get to shape it and final fit it this weekend.
Any advice for protecting the blade? I wrapped it in paper towels and tape, but it wasn't secure enough. Is the tape thing remedied with a simple solution?