First let me stress I am a complete beginner at making knives, but I saw your post on finishing wooden handles and thought I would throw out a few ideas which might or might not work.
With regards oil finishing wood, go over to the gunsmithing forums over at
http://www.accuratereloading.com and do a search there and you will get all sorts of info with regards oil finishes on gunstocks. There is a wealth of info which you may be able to use or adapt in some way.
To give you a brief idea about how it works with gun stocks, you basically start "wet" sanding with your desired oil or varnish using a fairly course wet and dry sand paper. Aim to create a mud slurry of sanding dust and oil on the surface. When its evenly coated set aside and leave to dry...usually a few days but I suspect a knife scale would be quicker. Repeat again another twice going to a finer grade paper each time and leaving to dry in between...you are actually filling the pores of the wood and encouraging the oil to really soak in...After that its a case of wet sanding your wood with the aid of a little oil/varnish using successively finer grades of wet and dry..I have done a gunstock up to 1200 grit and it comes out like a mirror! As you are doing each of these coats you are basically only using a little oil and trying to sand the oil into the wood..you are not building a mud coat like the earlier coats...at the end if you want to knock the gloss off, add some powered rotten stone or maybe french chalk ( I have not tried the later) and it will give that dull lusture and still leave you with sealed and relatively stable wood. Buff with a little wax when every thing is completely dry. The aim is not to build the oil/varnish on the surface but to sand into the wood..
I am thinking you could incorperate this method into the final sanding stages of the scales when they 95% nearly the right size. Not sure about the pins, but perhaps you would make them slightly "resessed" and sand the wood down till flush? I am sure one of the expirienced guys could give you a better lead...
Anyways the custom gunstock guys over at accuratereloading.com (its actually a hunting site) are really helpful and will answer any questions you may have..
One other thing...many of the custom gunstock makers have gone away from using a steel wool on an oil finished stock. The worry/theory is that tiny steel shads of the super fine wool can embed in the surface of the stock/oil and in time can rust/stain the stock. I have no idea if its a real problem, but one guy uses bronze wool I think from Brownels, while others use various grades of scotch pads...
Regards
Pete