# i don't have a 9.5" Radius Sanding Block



## seekabuilder (Aug 11, 2011)

hi there, gentlemen
i wanna know if anyone on here has thought of a substitute for Radius Sanding Blocks? if you didn't have a block or a specific radius block what would you do?


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## NGroeneveld (Jan 23, 2011)

You can make them. I read a book by Martin Koch a few years ago that shows how to make a trough that you line with sandpaper. The trough is six inches wide and twenty inches long and you slide the fretboard up and down. Its made from three sheets of eighth inch Baltic birch plywood that are screwed down in the middle to a base which has raised sides. He gives a formula in the book to make them with different radiuses (radii?). It's only usable to sand a radius before attaching to the neck. After that you still need the smaller block. I made one, but it wasn't very accurate. I tried cutting it apart afterwards to make it into a small block, but thats when I found out that the radius wasn't accurate when I checked it. Theoretically it would work though. Perhaps I just needed to try it again.

I think by the time you buy the Baltic birch plywood though, and something solid for the base, you could probably just buy a radius block for the same money. 

You can make radius gauges out of heavy cardboard. For a 9.5 gauge you would draw part of a 19 inch diameter circle on the cardboard and very carefully cut it out with an exacto knife. You can make any radius gauge this way. A twelve inch radius would be a 24 inch circle, and so on.

I'll see if I can find the book and post the formula to make the sanding trough.


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