Sanding Nooks and Crannies [10 Effective Ways]
Our sanding time and effort are cut into half with the help of many different sanding power tools. But you have seen that power tools have some limitations when you are thinking of sanding small details.
That’s why a combination of different power tools will help you finish a sanding job. You’ll be able to easily sand some corners, edges, and curves. But for small details and very hard-to-reach places, you’ll need something else. In this article, we’ll talk about every single solution for sanding nooks and crannies.
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How Sanding Nooks and Crannies can be Done?
How do you think people did perfect sanding jobs before the invention of power tools? There were and still are the handheld basic sanding techniques. Also, people have discovered some tricks for sanding tight places.
At first, we’ll talk about every possible way to sand nooks and crannies. We’ll see the available tools and solutions. After that, we’ll talk about different shapes and how you can sand those. So, bear with us as you’re going to see all possible solutions in this single article.
How to Sand Small Details of any Furniture:
After a lot of research and experience, we’ve found out that sanding small details gets perfected with small industrial tools. We don’t mean the power tools. Let’s see what are those and how can you take advantage of those tools.
1. Select The Right Sand Paper
Before we begin, you must select the right sanding paper. Also, the quality is important as the cheap ones don’t do any good. Another thing is lighting and you should ensure proper bright light where you’re sanding your project. All of these are helpful to detect any surface defects and correct them.
2. for Edges
The first choice for doing edges is the Preppin’ Weapon sanding blocks. You can find them as power tools but try this manual one and you’ll be amazed.

3. for Corner Pull

To do the corner pull, you can again rely on those sanding blocks. It’ll make a 90-degree edge a little bit round-ish and you get a smooth finish.
4. for Small Pieces and Double Shaped
For small pieces and round double shaped at the same time, you can use double-edge dub. The previous 2 solutions are for sanding one corner at a time. But you can do it quicker for smaller pieces with a fast break which can take custom-fit paper in various grits.

5. for Grooves

To sand grooves, there is a perfect hand tool called spline slide. With this tool, you can reach deep places into the grooves and sand easily.
6. for Curves

Sanding curves, we have another great reliable tool. It is so simple that your jaw will drop if you didn’t know about it. You can make custom-fit dowels and wrap sandpaper around it. Then, you can easily sand the piece with a perfect finish.
7. for Outward Curvature
Sanding outward curvature, you can’t use the previous tool and that’s why you need to use a rubber contour sanding pad. There are custom shapes and sizes for different wood projects.
8. In Tight Spaces
Apart from those, there are many tight spaces where none of those tools can reach. So, you’ll need something else like emery boards or tapered tips on belt-wrapped detail sanders. The emery boards are sold for a manicure but you’ll be amazed seeing them in action for sanding tight and curvatures of complex designs.
On the other hand, the taper-tip tuck is an industrial manual tool with a roller. As a result, you can use a piece of sandpaper most efficiently and you won’t need to change papers too often.
Sanding Small Details with Power Tools:
There are a wide number of sanding tools available to make your work easier. All the ways mentioned above are highly reliable, don’t cost much, give you better control, and work like magic.
But relying on a power tool is not a crime and you can use those to cut short the project time. Also, it’s illogical not to use power tools for sanding large areas or too many tight spots. Let’s see some tools and their use cases.
1. Dremel Tools:
The tools can have a rotating head, oscillating head, saw-like head, and custom head for custom jobs. We couldn’t find any other power tool that is as effective as this one for sanding hard-to-reach places.
2. File Sander:

The next best thing is the file sander which is used for more accurate detailed work. You can reach such spaces with its narrow belt that other tools can’t reach.
This is a small tool to hold and work more precisely but don’t underestimate it as you can do very powerful sanding with it.
3. Detail Sander:
For sanding corners, the suggested power tool is the detail sander with a triangular sanding pad. You’ll find a lot of similarities between an orbital sander and a detail sander. But this one does a better job in every way as sanding tight corners is no big deal.

There are other power tools that professionals use every day but those are for sanding large areas. Those tools are too big to sand nooks and crannies.
How to Sand Small Crevices with Sander Deglosser :
This is not a traditional or widely used solution and it is called liquid sandpaper. With it, you can have a smooth surface no matter how hard space is to reach. Use a paintbrush to apply a deglosser from Kleen Strip on any wood surface.
After 10 or 15 minutes, inspect the finish and decide if it needs another coating or not. No matter how small the crevices are, you can rely on this solution. After a perfect coat, you can apply paint or varnish to it for the final finish.

Final Words
For hundreds of years of woodwork, people have relied on hand-made solutions for sanding different shapes of wood design. That’s why we focused on the non-power tools to give you the best solution for sanding nooks and crannies. We hope that some of the ideas turn out to be helpful to your project.
Last Updated on October 4, 2024 by Rogers Weber
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