Sanding or smoothing in tight corners?

[DavidC]

I have a background leveling tool by Robert Boggs but I have some tight corners between flower petals, vines, etc and I'm not sure how to clean those up well. Particularly problematic are the corners that point perpendicular to the grain making any lateral movement with the grain unmanageable.

What are your personal methods and standards for finishing in these areas?

[Mike Brooks]

Cut it and leave it alone.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Mike's approach might be your best bet.  As soon as you try to get into tight corners with scrapers, sandpaper etc, you will probably just make it worse.  Clean chisel cuts are hard to improve upon.

[DavidC]

Woah, don't go throwing such accusations at me... I never said the chisel cuts were clean.

Thanks for the input, I'll just move on knowing future cuts will be better. I would like to post some photos of tight areas I think could be cleaned up by someone with more experience. I'll take some photos when I'm back at the bench.

[smylee grouch]

I suppose it might depend on the size and shape of those hard to get to spots but burnishing with the right shaped implement might help. 

[David Rase]

Ron Scott advertises a couple of small detailing tools which are designed for what I think you are after.  He sharpens them from engraving tool stock to his pattern.  You could contact him as he is on this forum.
David

[Daryl]

Woah, don't go throwing such accusations at me... I never said the chisel cuts were clean.

I guess you were "seeing" something the rest of us missed.

[DavidC]

[Mike Brooks]

You need to work with harder wood

[Ats5331]

Scraper might work here too. I think that Mike is right though, looks like a softer wood than what I would prefer..

[davec2]

First, I agree with Dave Rase.  I purchased one of Ron Scott's tools for leveling the background and find it an excellent design for that type of work.  Second, having been raised in a dental laboratory, I use dental carvers and scalers.  Easy to keep sharp and, with some dedicated work, I can get even the tightest areas of the carving fairly smooth.  They also work great for whiskering the same areas in preparation for water base iron nitrate stain.






All of this carving on the 3/4 scale rifle I am building had the background smoothed with the dental carvers.....

[Ky-Flinter]

I use narrow (1/8" to 1/4") flat chisels, held vertical and used as scrapers to level the background around carving.  You can make narrow round nosed scrapers out of worn out hacksaw blades to smooth out the hollowed elements.

Ron

[DavidC]

I fear Mr. Brooks is right (it happens!) And I became too enamoured with something I saw in Mark Elliot's portfolio. Cherry was a poor choice for this. It's just for me, at least.