Francis Gastellu

Thank you Janel for your reply! I have been an avid follower of Jim Kelso on the web but did not realize he had more of his work on Instagram, thank you for this! I think you are right that scrapers are at least a part of the answer here, and I'm right now looking at different geometries for this specific job. When it comes to polishing to a finish though, I think there is (at least for me) a bit of a gap between that and being able to move on to powdered abrasives. I've been somewhat able to bridge the two with shaped stones and toothpicks wrapped in sandpaper, and I am still experi

Well, I managed to shape a couple stones to a tight point, and I made myself a needle shaped burnisher. Combined with the careful hand use of gravers as scrapers, and more patience, I got to a better finish in the inside corner. There are still issues here obviously (background flatness, and the rounding of the foreground due to my indiscriminate use of sandpaper without hard backing), but I was focusing on the tight corner and that's a lot closer to what I want (this is just a practice piece). Additional tips are still welcome

Hi! As the topic says, I live in California. What the topic does not say is I'm actually French I am a hobby knifemaker and more recently swordmaker, and I have developed an interest in Japanese metal carving through the need to make koshirae for my blades. I am in awe when I see the work showcased in this forum, and I see that there is a long road ahead and much practice needed to eventually do some of the things I want to do. I have been lurking around for some time now, and I thought it was time to finally sign up. I hope you will forgive my beginner's questions! Cheers!

I loved the videos

Hello everyone, I am fairly new to tosogu and currently working on a tsuba. Part of the design calls for carving out some of the background, and I am practicing polishing a smooth slope and its transition with the foreground features. As you can tell, the closer I get to a border or to a tight corner, the more I am struggling, and I am looking for advice on how to effectively cleanup and polish close to details that need to be preserved. The tight inside corners are particularly challenging. I do have small stones, but nothing that small. A small piece of sandpaper wrapped aroun