I cut a lot of steel wire... I have stencils for the lengths that I need for different designs... but I needed a jig to really make the job easy. I pay my friend Aimee to cut the little bitty steel wires for my mini mobiles, so I thought she deserved a jig as well! Too many wires, its maddening, a jig was sooo very necessary!
This is what I did: I took a sturdy cardboard tube and cut slots 1/3 of the way thru the tube (with a hand held wood cutter) and then I cut a scrap of sheet metal (okay so I happened to have scrap sheet metal laying around and the cool wacky scissors that are used to cut the stuff) I traced the tube onto the scrap of sheet metal so I could get the right curve and then folded over the other end so I could handle it safely. Basically the idea was to create a metal "stop" so wire could be shoved in the tube and always stop at the same length.
This is what I did: I took a sturdy cardboard tube and cut slots 1/3 of the way thru the tube (with a hand held wood cutter) and then I cut a scrap of sheet metal (okay so I happened to have scrap sheet metal laying around and the cool wacky scissors that are used to cut the stuff) I traced the tube onto the scrap of sheet metal so I could get the right curve and then folded over the other end so I could handle it safely. Basically the idea was to create a metal "stop" so wire could be shoved in the tube and always stop at the same length.
I like this so much! Its very efficient to cut a lot of wires at once. There's a bit of variance with the longer wires (the wire catches on the cardboard) but I love it none-the-less!
Pictured is the smaller jig I made for the mini mobiles... then I also took a video of the larger jig
the video is a little odd and it doesn't show how excited I am about this... honestly, ask Aimee - I was showing it off last week when she was at the studio. Its very exciting stuff in my world!
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