Hello and welcome back! Today’s topic is what I regard as a rather sensitive issue, but an important one. The art of storing your wire. Nobody wants to untangle a spool of wire before they can start wrapping or sit down to work but have to look everywhere to find the right wire!
So, let’s put our organization caps on and see how we can work together to prevent a mess!
Common Storage Solutions
There are many ways you can store your wire and we all have our preferences. I’ll share some of my favorites that just researched with you below.
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1. The humble, yet effective, Wall Pegboard
The pegboard is perhaps the easiest way to quickly organize your workspace. A pegboard allows you to see all your bundles of wire (and other tools and accessories) at once. You can choose your layout from dark to light, or vice versa, from softest to hardest. Everything will have a place and you’ll never have to hunt down a particular wire.
Also, as your collection grows, you can easily expand your pegboard by adding more panels to hold more hooks and buckets for accessories.
2. Organizers, Drawers, and Other Storage Solutions
I love Back to Earth Creations’ (video below) way of organizing tools and how honest they are about how they battle with organizing too. From organizing your drawers to storing bare copper wire to avoid too much exposure to the elements—this video is an inspiration for a slightly unorganized worker like me.
Let’s not forget the humble kitchen utensil holder! Just pop your pliers over the rim and you can see them at once. I have to second Back to Earth Creations here: drawers are a blessing when you want to organize small spools of wire, stones, and other small items.
3. Professional Wire Spool Racks
I love visiting hardware and DIY stores to get storage solution ideas. The wire rack is perhaps one of the most mesmerizing items because you can accommodate so many spools of wire at once!
The AdirPro Wire Spool Rack is a sturdy must-have for the serious wire wrapping enthusiast. Let’s look at what sets it apart:
- Durability is paramount: the rack is made of gray, powder-coated steel and cold-rolled steel rods that are rust-resistant, ensuring many years of use without worries.
- Get the job done quickly and easily: Each rod can accommodate many wire spools at once. Adding or removing spools is a cinch: just slip the rod out of the slot, replenish, and off you go!
- Save space: and mount your spool rack to the wall or mount it to your workbench if you’ve got the space.
4. DIY Wire Spool Rack
Fancy making your own wire spool rack? Good, because we’ve got a video tutorial below for that too! Byte Sized Engineering offers a creative solution that you can customize to your specifications. I like the idea and I’ll be making one for my workbench (If I have the skills needed).
DIY Storage Solutions—Let’s Get Creative!
I’ll admit, I don’t like working on an unorganized workbench. I also don’t love organizing it either. So, what to do? Well, some creative solutions can help you to organize your wires:
6. Old kitchen tubs and Mason jars are perfect for lining up your wires for easy access.
7. A water bucket is a great place to save off-cuts and you can use the rim to hold pliers. Remember to add some weight to the bottom to ensure it doesn’t fall over!
8. Or, burn some cash and invest in plastic organizing bins and buckets that you can put on dedicated shelves to store all your wires, stones, and accessories.
9. Storage Racks
If you have the space, I’d recommend building a storage rack that can accommodate your organizing bins. In the Build It Make It video below, they’re using tote bins, and their rack is made according to those dimensions. Well, with a bit of planning and simple math, you can build your storage rack with sliding compartments or bins. Easy peasy!
10. Wire Storage Rack
Sometimes you just need to take an existing plan and change it to suit your needs. The idea behind this DIY Extension Cable Storage Rack can be ‘sized down’ to accommodate your wires and keep them organized in your workspace.
Instead of using the large pieces of wood sticking out, you can opt for dowel sticks around ¼” thick. Use the same idea of a 10º angle so that they angle slightly upwards. Rather than trying to glue dowel sticks to a piece of wood, I’d drill holes at the proper angle and glue them to the back piece. For extra strength, use a 2” x 4” piece of wood for the back.
11. Pack-Up-And-Go Solutions
Sometimes you need to pack up your wires (and stones and tools and accessories) and move them from one place to another. Imagine receiving an invitation to show your techniques at a craft fair or visiting a friend’s studio for a training session. Packing everything into cardboard boxes is the last thing you’d want to do!
Well, luckily those days are over! When you invest in a portable utility cart you can neatly pack everything up and move from A to B with the smallest amount of hassle. And, when you combine it with the other solutions, we’ve looked at earlier, it is a win-win situation!
I use my portable utility cart to store my wire spools and keep them under the workbench when I’m not using them. It is a quick and easy solution to keep everything organized and I can grab and go whenever there’s an opportunity to host a demonstration or visit another studio.
The Final Wrap
There you have it! With a bit of imagination, DIYing, and modification, anyone can have their wires (and stones, and tools, and accessories) neatly organized and at hand when the creativity strikes.
Remember, you need to find a way to organize your wires that works for you. Not every method will appeal to everyone and that’s fine.
I hope these ideas will inspire you to organize your wires and work in a stress-free and organized environment. Until next time, happy wrapping and happy organizing!
