Thread: How do I carve sand? (No, not with teeny, tiny tools!)

How about using real sand & glue? Superglue?

Super glue is an excellent idea but for a project of this size, costly.
I'll soon be doing something similar but with brass dust cleanings from a key
cutting machine.

Add 50ml water to 500ml carpenter's glue and mix thoroughly.
Use a brush to paint the wood, liberally "salt" the wood with clean, dry sand,
store the brush in a pot of water and wait 24 for the glue to set up.
Knock off the unbound sand and repeat several times. The final layer of sand
should hide the gloss of the glue.

Satin Varathane should work just as well. The brush will be ruined, for sure.
A small test on scrap should produce a useful result before going on.

The above are good ideas if you actually want to use sand. If you are determined to carve your base, then I would suggest doing something similar to carving hair; carve the broad pattern first, followed by finer detail over the top.

First carve the bottom piece in the general pattern of the sand you want. Sand is rarely just flat under the influence of moving water so you should see a rippling pattern of some kind. When you have this sanded smooth then I'd suggest a patterned stamp to put the sand grain texture on.

I like the idea of a stamp.

Thanks for the input... I think I prefer to carve it as glued on could over time come off and be hard to clean... (yes, I'm a girl!)
so carving some ebb and flow then stamping might be the way to go!
So I should just search online to find stamp things?

I know stamp sets are made but I've never seen one designed to replicate sand specifically. You may have to look into that. There are a lot of stamp patterns associated with leather work. That might be a goo place to start.

I've seen those riffles in a pale sand bottom in the shallows, lots of times.
Huge oversight on my part (thanks Whittling).
OTOH, what's the bottom going to look like in platypus habitat?
Like the Yarra near the Princes Gate Station/Melb?

If an actual sand bottom gets a bit dusty in a carving, it can only
mute the construction process. The carving is so well done that the river bottom can't
detract from the work.

2 cups sand
1 cup cornsarch
1 cup water

mix well will last indefinatly inside

New nail punches are slightly hollow to partially fit around a nail head, the right sized nail head that is. There's some tiny brad nail punches around, not hollow enough to form a sand grain as is but if you could grind it out more I reckon it'd work. Some of the grinding bits that are used in a Dremel like tool could do it. Where you buy the patience that it's going to require I don't know It looks wonderful so far

I'd get in touch with custom stamp makers to see how much it'd be to have one made up for you.
If you'd like to go the entirely in house route though you could take a mild steel blank, say 5mm diameter, heat it up to red heat, then take a sharp center punch and hammer in a few dimples over the entire surface of the blank's end...thus you have your sand punch.

This thread deals with creating similar punches for a grainy surface texture technique called 'nanako' in classical japanese metalwork. Even though its geared towards metalwork, you could just as easily use the same sorts of tools for creating sand textures in woodcarving.

http://www.militaria.co.za/nihontome...pic.php?t=2478

If you want an exposed wood surface rather than material applied to the surface you might try checkering. These tools come in a variety of cutting densities. http://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-to...prod26277.aspx. I've been practicing on tool handles.

checkering tool.jpg

Another possibility might be to use an electric pencil / engraver. http://www.harborfreight.com/electri...ver-46099.html

Cheers,
Rob

I made several texture stamps. mild steel, 6mm and 12mm round and square rods, maybe 15-18cm long.
Dremel and some cutoff wheels = done in no time. But not very excited about the
appearance. Not what I was looking for.

Hard to find a better place than Brownell's for parts and any sort of gunsmithing.

I've made a few stamps before , from round head 6" nails - problem is I think any stamp will just be too coarse an effect.
Dremel make a reciprocating engraver which has variable stroke length , this would definitely do an excellent job but it would take a while.
Also I wonder if you know those devices flower arrangers use to hold their flowers in a display ? They look like "steel spiked inverted nail brushes" , they might be a sand punch just waiting for a little blunting of the sharp pins !

I think that Whittling makes a significant observation in post #4.
Get a recognizable ripple pattern overall, then the surface treatment.
Carries the dynamic motion of the animal.
Makes me reconsider a couple of carving bases that I have in mind.