Paul is most recognized for his hollow forms that are embellished with geometric piercings and carvings. His designs come from patterns found in nature, architectural structures, and woven objects. Paul designs many of his tools, jigs, and fixtures that are almost always made from scrap or low cost materials. Most often used woods, from Arizona, are Carob, Citrus, Mesquite, and African Sumac that has the interesting feature of turning red in sunlight.

He started with a slide show of a number of his turnings and the patterns from which the decoration ideas came. A key point is that, in a sense, one is working with latitude and longitude lines on a 3 dimensional and round surface, like that of a globe.

Many of his hollowing tools are made from various sizes of Allen head wrenches, with the tips ground flat like a bullet nosed scraper. To offset torque, Paul made square-ish cross form handles, which assure a firm grip against the torque of sideway extended hollowing tips. A description of how to make these handles and low cost hollowing tools can be downloaded from the CMW website. By grinding two opposite sides off a tap (used to create threads in metal for screw insertion), then cutting off a piece with 4 or 5 threads, and supergluing this to a flat on a ½ dia. rod set into a handle, Paul can put delicate beads on a slowly turning vessels surface, best first coated with CA glue to stiffen the wood fibers. He mostly uses 16 to 24 TPI (threads per inch) taps.

Paul began by roughing a 10 inch African Sumac log to develop the vase shape. After a spigot was turned at the bottom, the piece was chuck mounted with the tailstock used to center and support the turning as long as possible.

Paul shifted to a flat scraper. He sharpens his scrapers upside down to assure the forming of a full burr. The scraper addresses the wood VERY lightly, in the horizontal (not tip down) position, and sometimes handle slightly down with exceptionally light cuts!

The tailstock end of the turning was addressed, with a small gouge dimpling a pilot hole for drilling. A center hole was next drilled to about 5 inches with a regular bullet nosed 3/8 drill pushed in and out to clear chips. Next, a gun makers hollow drill (also used in aircraft manufacturing) was hooked up with an air hose at the rear, and this drill then hand inserted as the lathe turned. A mark on the side of the drill acted as depth gauge and the drilling completed quickly with all chips blown clear. Such drills, broken drills useful in making cutters, etc. can be inexpensively obtained from John Moe, AAW member Seattle, WA.

With chuck jaw secured by set-screw, Paul reversed the lathes turning direction and did all the hollowing operations on the far side of the vessel! This allowed easier inspection of the turning process and better tool control, with tool handle against his body. He progressed from a straight ½ bullet nosed scraper through other bent ones made of different sized Allen head wrenches set in his firm grip handles to clear out the neck area. Then back to the straight scraper until the wall thickness was about 3/32 throughout the vessel.

With his finger in a small poly-bag Paul rubbed medium superglue over the entire outer surface to slow drying to the inside only and offset tendencies to split.

At this point Paul shifted to a similar but already dried vessel. After a bit of truing up the mouth, he turned on a fiber optic light device with an 8 foot cable at the end of which was a bright white light. He held the stiff cable a few inches from the lighted end, along side his various hollowing tools. With lights out he proceeded to thin the walls of the vessel in a most dramatic and fascinating manner, with rings of light and shadow moving down to the foot of the vessel. He stressed that it is good to practice and know the wood you are using and when it becomes translucent!

In the afternoon Paul discussed and demonstrated finishing. He often sands off the CA clue, followed by 2 coats of WATCO clear Danish oil, then buffing with a Tripoli embedded cloth wheel mounted in a battery powered hand drill. He has also used a hard wax&but prefers a minimal finish, just enough to ward off stains and dirt.

Another slide show followed, giving examples of where to look for patterns. In nature examples included microscope slides of cellular structures, flowers, leaves, vines, animal hides, ocean waves, etc. Among man made objects were baskets, textiles, architectural features (e.g., a Taj Mahal portal), Escher paintings, wallpaper books, and so on. Clip Art patterns can be found on the Internet. Paul showed the use of graph paper and a more mathematical/geometrical approach to developing curves and other patterns too. Many times he rotates random piercing patterns to achieve differentiation and avoid eye-boredom. He has made many test boards of geometric patterns on 4 x 12 pieces of scrap wood about 1/8 thick.

Grid lines are used to develop a pattern for piercing and carving. A ballpoint pen is laid on a plywood platform and the height adjusted so the pens tip is level with the tailstock center point. This allows a line to be drawn on the work piece along the center line of the lathe and following the curved vessels surface by sliding the pen along the plywood shelf with pen point marking the vessel.

Paul showed how to make an outboard indexing wheel with 60 (or however many) slot-stops by attaching a circular piece of MDF screwed onto a faceplate threaded onto the outside threads of the headstock, or 1/8 thick sheet of aluminum to place inboard behind the chuck. To keep the math simple his formula is: #stops desired divided by 3 = the diameter for the MDF or Aluminum in centimeters. E.g., 60 stops / 3 = 20cm or about 8 inches diameter. Bandsaw the MDF or Aluminum to that size or a bit larger. Then take a cloth tailors tape that shows inches on one side and centimeters on the other. Wrap this tape around the MDF and see how close to 60cm you are. Build up the circumference with masking tape, or carefully turn down the diameter as needed. Mark each of the 60 stops and cut them on a band saw (or carefully by hand). One can also use proportioning to add grid lines.

Paul next showed how to get the vessels background recessed. Using a short flat tipped drill bit in a battery powered hand drill, with just a about 1/8 protruding, he touch-drilled throughout the area where the background was to recede. This simple procedure removed a bulk of the wood to the desired depth.

Next followed the use of a Powercrafter 400,000 rpm air driven hand piece with a small inverted cone dental bit. Using the little finger and eyeballing Paul cleaned out the remaining wood to the depth of the previously drilled holes. Then, with an Exacto blade reversed in its holder and ground to have a burr, the remaining surface was scraped smooth. The high-speed air tool does not drift off with grain direction, so keeping wood removal controlled within the pattern is easier than with an electric motor tool of lower rpm.

Paul then showed how he makes very small surface sanders, using various sizes of leather punches to punch out sandpaper circles and same sized rounds of double sided masking tape. He tapes the sandpaper to one side of the sticky masking tape, and the other sticky tape side to the flat-ended mandrel. He made some mandrels by removing the small clamping cap and bristles from a Dremel polishing wheel, which left the flat round surface atop the bits shaft. Rio Grande catalog, which supplies jewelers, is another source for various small mandrels and bits. NOTE: Dremel and Foredom have merged, and stores like Lowes or Home Depot, are carrying many bits and other accessories.

Switching to another partly finished vessel, Paul next demonstrated the making of his basket weave pattern. Since there are about 800 holes, many hours would be needed to square each drilled hole, using the Powercrafter hi-rpm air tool. He spared us by only doing a few. The point was made that one has to be in a sort of Zen-trance and calm mood to do some of this fine, detailed, and repetitive work (listening to enjoyable music also works well). And, for most folks, only a few hours at a time are possible for such activity, especially to avoid mistakes after many hours of progress. Thus, shifting to other projects is part of the overall turning activity. After each hole had been squared, next came the cutting and sanding that makes the warp and woof weave pattern of the basket. First Paul went over the vessel with a marker and marked where each cut was to be made at the joint where one basket strand would dip under the one passing 90 degrees next to it. Without this prior marking it would be too easy to cut in the wrong place and lose the over-under woven pattern.

The Powercrafter air tool was used to cut along each joint to ½ depth of the wood; about 1/8. Turning the tool about 50 degrees, the slope was cut that ramps the warp under the woof. Finally, with little sanding discs on a mandrel in a Dremel MotoTool, each ramp was sanded and blended to look cloth-like in softness of line. Side edges of each ribbon would be similarly sanded and smoothed. Then would come the final sanding, burnishing with a bristle brush mandrel and/or ScotchBrite pad, and finishing as previously described. Two weeks of this detail work is involved, interspersed with other change of pace activity.

Paul often uses headpiece magnifiers he refers to them as binoculars to more clearly see and perform much of the fine detail work. He admonishes that wood dust needs vacuumed away as it is created. He emphasizes that a thin, minimal finish is needed to avoid loading up the fine grooves and edges.

--Bob Heltman

More of Paul's Work

Paul's Tool Handles