I oftentimes forget that I’ve got uncommon uses for relatively common household items. Yesterday I was preparing more tubular cages made out of the steel reinforcing mesh (remesh) in order to protect some fig trees that I planted last year and thought that I might document one for y’all.
The shank of my handheld nut driver is hollow. I have been using it as an auto-indexing wire bender for years. I scraped the rust off of the steel wire to give y’all an indication of how much wire fits inside.
I slide the wire all the way in
and then I bend it into a U shape.
Depending on whether I am joining two wire ends or just clipping the U onto a line of grids I might be bending a second U in a plane perpendicular to the first. Then I can use slip joint pliers (Channellocks) to close the loops.
