How to Twist Wire

Make Exactly the Thickness you Need

This little trick can mean the difference between hanging your head in shame, and a wildly successful craft experience.

I use tie wire for my crafts almost all the time, but sometimes, it's just not quite thick enough, and it's too bendable. 

Then, I turn to my back up plan, with twisting two strands of wire together to make something much less pliable, and with a lot more strength.

This is the only way I've found to get the exact right gauge of wire, out of all my choices of tie wire, copper wire and all the other bits that I collect.

Using this technique, it's easy to customize the thickness to whatever your specifications.

You need a long length of wire, at least triple what you want to end up with. Because you'll be doubling it up, and then the twisting takes up some of the length, cut it a lot longer than what you think. 

Of course, if you're like me, you can always use the lengths that you get, even if they won't work for what you want for a particular craft. 

A cordless drill is one of the essential parts for this project.  You also need a cup hook or some other way of holding the end of the wire.

See the short video below to see how to put it into the drill;

Double up the long piece of wire, making sure the ends are about even.  Put the doubled up part on the cup hook, and take the free ends of the wire and insert them into the chuck of the drill. 

Make sure you take out any drill bits first - the chuck has to be empty for this. 

Tighten up the chuck, either with the key, or hold the chuck and carefully trigger the drill.

Stretch out the wire, but make sure you hold the drill so the pieces of wire don't come out. 

Trigger the drill, and it will start to wind up the wire.  Twist until it's the right amount of twist for your project, then stop. 

Take the wire off the cup hook, and undo the chuck of the drill, and you have your first twisted wire.

Things to try;

• Use two different strands of wire in different gauges, and see what happens
  
  
• Use the same method to untwist wire, such as telephone or electric cable

What can you make with the pieces of twisted wire you've made? 

I've only just started experimenting with this, but there are some things I've made, or plan to make; candle holders, a plant pot holder, and a wire heart.