dye and ebony

It's been a week since I got the new dyes, but I haven't done more than one test piece of each of them. I want to test a couple of them again, but I think most of them are pretty good. I'll post photos sometime.

My carved ebony piece is coming out ok. I took this photo last week, the front still looks about the same, most of the work I have been doing lately has been on the back. The edges are kind of chipped , but that's not hard to fix. The problem I have been having is smoothing the wood. I'm trying some different things, but I'm not really sure what the best way is.