Lots of traditional folders are assembled without bushings. The main reason they are necessary on a SAK I so the standard scales can clip to them. I you're not using standard scales, they're not needed.
On traditional knives, the scales are often drilled with a tapered drill, which allows the pin to expand in peening. You can get around this without tapered drills by drilling through at the "correct" size, then part drilling (counterboring) with a fractionally larger drill (for example if drilled 3mm, coubterbore with 1/8" = 3.175mm) and slightly counter sinking the face to allow the mushroomed head to sit flush.
With wood scales, this can be sanded after to tidy it up, but with stag you might not want to do that necessarily, and so you need to be more careful in peening so you don't hit the scales. Go slow, and peen with a pin punch.
Of course if you don't plan to take this apart again any time soon, "glueing" the scale to the liner before peening will be and extra precaution to stop the scale coming adrift.
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