fine detail sanding

Ryan Mooney

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The Gorge Area, Oregon
So I find myself needing some extra find detail sanding tools to get in the crevasses of my latest project. The details are on the order of 1/8" (maybe 1/16 in the smallest) with lots of twists. Was thinking maybe trying some of these:
http://www.amazon.com/Double-Sided-Emery-Boards-Bulk/dp/B007TMSOE6
This isn't for signifcant material removal (already did that with some wee little chisels), just for some small amount of detail cleanup.

Anyone have better suggestions?
 
Should be worth a try. I might just pick up one or two at the drug store to test before buying many but, my drug store is close. It would help to see what you are sanding but, I find sanding cord to be very handy.
 
I'll try to get pics up in the next day or so. Loml said I could try one emery board she has thats not entirely unlike those before I drop the big bucks on a bundle so we'll see how that goes.

Hadn't considered the cord, I don't think it will help as much in the specific part I was thinking of (basically I've carved a braid so lots of up and down as well) but might help in a couple of other spots... certainly a good idea.
 
Would Swiss Pattern Files be of any use? Quite a few shapes in a set & relatively fine cut.

Quite possibly, the pointy ended ones would be just about perfect I think.

I've been slowly expanding my set of rasps and files, the better the quality I get the more I like them :D For medium/coarse work I've been using a couple of the iwasaki "fine cut" files, they were money well spent; removing material fast and leaving a pretty good surface that doesn't require a lot of work to finish up.

I have been using a set of these for refining some of the shapes:
http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/store/item/MS-RRSET3/Search/MS-RRSET3/Hand_Cut_Riffler_Rasp_Set
They're pretty nice but are a bit coarser than desired for really small stuff. Granted with a light hand they do cut quite smooth and I don't think I've quite "broken them in" yet (they seem to cut smoother after being used a bit).

I'll look around and see if I can find a decent swiss pattern set that won't break the bank..
Hmm these look interesting, anyone tried them?
http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=20139&cat=1,42524
They might be just what the doctor ordered.
 
I make my own sanding sticks, using 3M "77" spray adhesive and drugstore/craft store tongue depressors. They can be cut/whittled to almost any shape needed.
 
I make my own sanding sticks, using 3M "77" spray adhesive and drugstore/craft store tongue depressors. They can be cut/whittled to almost any shape needed.

Good call Jim. That's probably the winner in this case so I can finish this up.

I may get the detail rifflers anyway just because they look interesting to try :D
 
Follow up. I did use Jim's idea a bunch and its definitely a honey, will continue to do that. I had a can of 3M 45 spray adhesive in the cabinet so used that and it works just dandy for this. I actually just sprayed a half sheet of 220 grit and then stuck a whole bunch of splints (some offcuts from the scrap heap worked a charm) to it and then cut the sandpaper apart with a box cutter around each splint once the glue set. I now have a whole stack in the sanding bin :thumb: :thumb:

I also picked up the LV Detail Riffler set of 4. These are very fine rifflers and leave a surface comparable with say good quality 150 grit sandpaper (and perhaps a bit better if you take a light finish pass). I ended up with 2 of the #2 curved rifflers because they accidentally sent me two of those instead of one of the #3's (as per the usual superlative LV service they let me keep the extra #2 and sent me the missing #3). I'm actually pretty tickled about that because the #2 is my favorite out of the set and works really well for both getting into little cracks as well as smoothing outside curves (I'm surprised at this because I expected it to be awkward in use but its not). I'm not in love with the #1 so far, its hard to get a long enough stroke to be useful, but I could perhaps see it working well where you have a longer profile (leaves/vines? maybe?) than what I've been working on. I haven't tried the #3 much because of the delay, tentatively I'm putting it on par with the #2 but perhaps less flexible in use. The #4 seemed a bit awkward in use, again there are probably some shapes where it may work very well but I'm not sure what it would be.

I also picked up a set of needle files. There is one side round and the other flat that also tapers to a point that is pretty much all I've used from the set, its by far the handiest. Its also quite handy for pre-sanding cleanup of small details; worth having. I'm not sure how it would compare to a set of swiss pattern, I think they are slightly coarser in general.

Since then I've finished one more spoon with braids and knots (gave away before I could take pics, sorry - the handle was a three strand braid with two stacked manrope knots for the gripping part and a single strand variant of the manrope as a junction between the braid and the bowl) and am ~most of the way through another (will follow up on the spoon thread once done). I was with loml on a wool spinning class for a week and carved/napped while she was doing that so had some time to play :D and I can say that at least the #2 detail from LV is well worth it for cleanup if you do much of this type of carving. It made smoothing the braid and knots after going over them with the rougher rifler way way easier.
 
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