Sanding outside curves

[swarfrat]

I have an OSS that works for inside curves, but what do you guys use for sanding blocks on the outside curves? I've used flat blocks so far but it's tedious and easy to flatten more than intended. What do you guys use? Sponges? Concave sanding blocks? Flexible sanding blocks? Patience?

 

[War_in_D]

I tend to use the sanging sponges myself.  On that walnut body, I used my spindle sander to sand all the edges of the body before I routed the roundovers on the front and back.  After the round overs were done, I used the sanding sponges to hit the rounded edges.

 

[swarfrat]

One desperate crazy idea I had was to route a negative pattern from the template which will be at least 1/2" larger diameter curves, then cut that up into sanding blocks. But it's a lot of work. That never got past the crazy idea stage.

Too bad there isn't a pilot bushing for the oss. That could work.

 

[PhilHill]

I bought a dozen or so 3x3 in neoprene foam rubber pads. Their meant for vibration damping under washing machine feet and the like. They make pretty good flexible sanding blocks.
I hate trying to sand round overs, that's one of the reason's I started doing chamfers  or bevels instead. Then you can use a wood block or a dowel to do it. But that's not always a good solution though.

 

[NedRyerson]

I used the belt sander attachment for my OSS, but I learned you gotta keep the body movin' or else it cuts too aggressively and I get flat spots (I was testing it out on that project body I mentioned with the weird lam top -- which, I now believe, was caused by too much glue).

I also need to get some finer-grain belts.  The thing came with either 60 or 80, and wow.  Did that do a number on the edges!  Glad I didn't use an actual production body!

 

[stratamania]

Erasers of various sizes work well for backing blocks for sanding.