tools for flattening/texturing backgrounds and smoothing details?

[Mike Allen1010]

Thanks to Mike Henderson's tutorial advice from many others hear the creek, I just finished my first carving - a shell. I will post some pictures as soon as I get a chance to finish it. It's nothing special, I made lots of mistakes, but I really enjoyed the process and learned a lot.

I primarily enjoy building furniture with handtools and would like to be able to include some carvings to make them a bit more interesting. I think most of my carving will be "incised" on furniture components (is that the right term?), rather than carved separately and then applied.

I would appreciate any advice and suggestions about tools I can use to smooth the background surrounding the carving. There doesn't seem to be much room to use sandpaper and I was wondering if I could use something like rifflers for smoothly in the background, or some kind of punch to add texturing? I was also wondering if maybe I should try and make some small scrapers -- I have some 1095 spring steel to use for saw plates and I guess I could try and turn an edge of a small piece -- maybe?

In carving my first shell, there were delicate edges between the flutes that I couldn't really carve smooth because they just chipped out. I tried to use some small pieces of folded sandpaper to smooth the edges, but it was hard to get my fingers into the tight areas. Is there some kind of curved file or something that would work for this?

Thanks in advance, any advice, suggestions or recommendations are much appreciated!

All the best, Mike

[Pat Zabinski]

I sometimes use leather stamps in tight corners. Scroll through here to find a large selection of options http://www.tandyleatherfactory.com/e...er-stamps.aspx. They have a wide variety of patterns. I use the smooth ones for tamping tiny corners where I cannot get sandpaper but still want smooth. And I use the cross-hatch patterns to produce a rough texture or to darken background.

When desparate, I'll also glue some sandpaper to the tips of these things, which allows me to get in tight corners.

Otherwise, rifflers work as well when you have an opening for their low profile.

Good luck.

[Margie Melendy]

check out a Wood Craft store or on line. I was in the in Kansas City yesterday and bought the Wind River 5 rolls of real narrow sand paper they were showing me this tool that the sand paper goes on. I believe ere re 4 r 5 color coded tools in each package. Coarse and fine and there was some sand paper with . Congratulations on finishing the piece. We haven't started yet. Waiting on the Sharp ing stone I ordered to get here. Hope this helps. Margie

[Bob Dubanoski]

Mike,

I have used leather stamps, as Pat suggested, numerous times for background texture on wood carvings and have been pleased with the results.

Bob

Summer - Minnesota
Winter - Texas

[randall rosenthal]

i use sticky back sand paper stuck on palette knives. works great. i have the color coded sanding sticks too. they also can be useful. i real trick is to put sticky back sandpaper on a thin kerf saw. with a little practice you can make a very smooth pie slice cut.

[Tom McMahon]

I use emery boards made to shape finger nails, you can cut them to any shape you like, they are coarse on one side and fine on the other.