Robert, No I did not. My reasoning was that since the blade was Damascus and the guard stainless, there would be a fine "line" either way, so I just opted to fit the guard to those ricasso flats. Honestly, there was no gaps. This was a challenge since I had not constructed a knife this way before, but I was very happy with the result.

I have seen one with an aluminum guard that was cast on but never have seen anything other than that. I'm sure it would be doable with brass the main problem I could forsee would be in the junction at the recasso. As the liquid metal would want to meniscus against the steel.