Wood Sculpture Sanding

Sanding Tools and Burnishing

This is when you should be creative. Most of the time we use an aluminum oxide sanding cloth in various grits to achieve the finish that we want on our sculptures. Some of the Sandpapers are of such a fine grit (500 600 800 and even finer) that they will do our burnishing for us but when we must get into narrow crevices and tiny holes we must get creative. Today we will explore some methods used, but I would love you to introduce me to the special tricks you have developed.

One of the original LuRon teachers has found that sandpaper glued on an electric knife does a wonderful job on inside sanding. Sandpaper rolled around a credit card type base will also make some sanding easier. What is necessary to remember while sending is to protect your lungs from a build up of cellulose debris from our sanding efforts. Please wear a mask!

There are various sandpapers that use grit of ground stone or gems. Diamond files and Zircon papers are fine for fine finishing. Other types of grits are for gross finishing of rough edges and controlling that hairy shag that normal scrapers will often create. For this we will use open sandpaper (or called drywall sandpaper) or an open group sandpaper which has less grit than closed sandpaper. This gives the surface more cutting power.

Our classes usually use a cloth backed sandpaper as these last longer, but the use of some of the wet/dry sandpapers will do some very fine finishes. These are usually paper backed. An art gum eraser will make a fine and cheap sandpaper cleaner.
Remember to keep your tools sharp, your sandpaper clean, and your work surface clean. Keep track of your time to see how long the finished sculpture takes!

Sand! Sand! Sand!

Arline De Palma