The Paperhanger's most important tool
Anyone familiar with me knows how highly I regard Mr. Naulta, the fine craftsman who trained me. He taught me a good system of installing but there is no such thing as a system that is perfect. The part of his system that was not perfect was his hand tool organization.
The old man kept his smoothing brush in his right hip pocket. His broad knife went in the left hip pocket and all the rest of his handtools in a carpenters nail apron. The first day I hired on he sent me to his work truck for band aids. He couldn't see where his razor knife was so he had to "feel" for it until either he got it or it got him! Band aids were necessary as a matter of course.
This all began changing for me one day one day when we met at our usual place for coffee before work. With us at our table was Jake (another fine craftsman) who ran the shoe shop next door. One morning Jake made the comment that he could make almost anything out of leather. That comment started me thinking about a tool belt and to doing what I like doing better than almost anything else -- inventing.
A few days later I came up with a drawing of what I thought I wanted in a tool belt and true to his promise Jake made it up for me. The tool belt had a pocket for a large sponge, one for the razor knife and a loop for the seam roller handle to go in. This naturally turned the razor knife handle up and the seam roller handle down so by feel I could tell one from the other. No more grabbing the sharp end of that razor knife! Jake crafted another pouch that held my smoothing brush and I thought I had everything I needed right under my thumb.
Well, you know it is -- there is nothing like experience to tell you how well a thing is going to work. When I started using my new invention I realized I needed a place for a screw driver for removing switch plates. Out on the job the only thing I could find was some scraps of electrical wire so I punched a few holes and ran a couple of pieces of wire through them to hold my screw driver on the side of the pouch. That was in 1964 -- those wires are still there today on my old belt! Time went on and after a while the leather pocket holding the razor knife started to get a big hole in it from the razor blade cutting away at it so I lined this with a scrap of roof flashing.
What I didn't realize until much later was how well this organized tool system improved my ability to learn not to mention my production. Not until 1978 with the opening of the American School of Paperhanging Arts did I realize how quickly one can learn how to roll a seam when their time is not consumed constantly looking for that *%$#@ seam roller!
Paperhanging has always been to me an enormously satisfying profession but on the other end of that seesaw is sometimes frustration. That frustration in our trade can be caused by something as simple as what side of the bed you got up on and your mood at the start of the day to poor industry quality control and wallcoverings that just don't seem to want to be hung! Understand this about human physiology: frustration uses energy twice as fast a hard physical labor. Any small bit of frustration you can remove from your everyday operation is over time worth a thousand times the amount of effort it took to remove it. A well organized tool belt not only removes frustration but also improves your speed.
The tool belt pictured in the site are for right handed people but I have never left out the "lefties". I have always taught left handed students to hang left handed (i.e. left to right) and we make up their hand tool leather exactly reversed from a right hander. This coupled with a lefties uncanny ability to transpose everything causes them to learn at least as fast (many times even faster) than right handed students even though they are being taught by a right handed teacher. To purchase this tool belt go to PASTEMACHINES.COM and click on other tools.
If you are going to design your own belt you should include the same tools (and a place for them) in your belt. Those tools are smoothing brush seam roller, ruler shears, broadknife and a razor knife. I also include the misc. small but necessary tools: a pencil, screwdriver, and a sponge. The small zippered pouch holds extra razor blades conveniently located at the front of the belt. Each tool is given it's own compartment making it easy for your hand to locate.
It's amazing how fast a new installer gets accustomed to this belt. It has always proved to be immensely satisfying to watch an installer outfitted with this tool belt at work and notice that they never have to take their eyes off their work when they reach for any of their hand tools. Each slips in and out of the belt and almost automatically into their hand. Since I opened the school decades ago I have always given each of my students their own fully equipped belt handcrafted for them individually.
When we are able (because of a decrease in our tape reproduction costs) to reduce the price of our course we put those dollars we were saving into making certain each student was given this fully equipped belt. We did this because we knew that a well organized tool system makes the installer more successful.
I took the lessons I learned on my old tool belt and incorporated in the new belts the students now receive. The holder for the razor knife is still lined with metal to keep it from cutting up the leather. Instead of pieces of wire holding the screwdriver to the pouch I have a special holder constructed of leather. I moved the shears from the front of the pouch to the side to make the belt ride a little easier.
When I'm installing I still keep the broad knife in my back left hand pocket. But what I noticed when teaching was that some of my students (especially the women) were starting to wear pants without pockets. So now I provide each of the belts with an optional separate leather loop to hold the broad knife.
Sometimes you only need a special tool for one project and then maybe not for a long while afterwards. For instance, I once did an eighteen hundred unit condo project that had chrome bathroom fixtures (soap dishes etc.) throughout. These chrome fixtures were held to the mount bracket with a small allen wrench screw. I kept loosing that stupid little wrench. After the third tip to the hardware store I drove the Allen wrench down into a six inch piece of an old broom handle. This allowed me to make a loop for it on the face of my smoothing brush pouch. This saved me so much time and aggravation that I now put two spare leather loops on the face of every brush pouch. (Now the only aggravation is my students calling to ask what two tools I left out of their handtools set!)
Before I close this article out I want to say a couple of things to those of you who still hold the razor blade in your mouth. First ask your dentist what holding that metal blade with your teeth does to the nerves in those teeth...and heed the dentist's warning. Second ask your doctor what the mold and mildew inhibitors in wallcovering adhesive ingested in small amounts over twenty or thirty years will to to your digestive system. They are poison.
There are available pin on/clip on magnets on the market to hold your blade if you don't like using a razor knife. Whenever you do just do something --anything-- to get those blades out of your mouth.
I hope that this column will help you realize that either by designing your own, or using ours, a well organized paperhangers tool belt is not an optional luxury but an absolute necessity in making certain that you use each minute of each day to it's best advantage. Every minute you waste searching for tool is a minute you didn't use to make money! Every minutes worth of energy you waste on frustration robs you of two minutes worth of energy for learning, working or playing. A paperhangers tool belt is the one tool no installer can do without!
Back to lesson page
The American
School of Paperhanging Arts (ASPA)
Click on our building to discover how our training saves you time!
PaperTheWeb.Com
a division of ASPA specializes in websites for the wallcovering industry
You can purchase
professional tools directly from our online school store at
PasteMachines.COM
Did you ask for our ASPA School Catalog yet? It's FREE!
We sponsor the American Paperhanging Network
Over 100,000 jobs each year are installed by ASPA trained professionals
A good education is one of the few things in life you spend everyday and still keep
Our only job is teaching and supporting wallcovering professionals!
The shortest road to success is always a great education
ASPA trained installers are fully supported for the lifetime of their business
Want to come and visit our school? We would love to have you...
Proud members of The National
Guild of Professional Paperhangers
Before you copy anything from our web site please ask for written
permission from
The American School of Paperhanging Arts,
450 Little Street, Commerce, Georgia 30529
Call....1-800-633-2796 or email INFO@paperhanging.com