Electrical Wire Unrolling Device

[BuffaloJohn]

If you have ever used coils of wire that don't come on a spool, unrolling them so the wire remains straight and flat can be difficult. So, I built a wire unroller.

It consists of two parts - the base:


which is a bunch of plywood scraps, in this case three layers of 1/2" to give it a little weight so it doesn't slide about. In the middle is a 3/4" pipe flange and screwed into that is a section of 3/4" pipe. I had galvanized pipe, but that is not important.

The second part is the spinner:




The top side has three pieces of strut, each with a long bolt and some washers and a nut to fasten them to the spinner plywood. You see there are marks on the board, the circle being the diameter of these three strut pieces which must be less than the inner diameter of the coil of wire (but not too much smaller).

The bottom side has four casters mounted in a circle about the diameter of the outside diameter of the coil. In the center is a hole that is just a little larger than the pipe diameter.

Put together with a coil of wire, it looks like this:



And when you unroll, it makes a nice straight and flat wire on the ground.



Why are the struts as tall as you see? That way, if you are pulling at an upward angle, the wire unrolls versus coming off and thus twisting. Also, when you unroll, since the wire does not have a flanged spool, the top of the coil can ride on the struts until it unrolls and eventually unrolls from the coil.

I built it with the long bolts and the pipe flange so it can be quickly disassembled for storage and reassembled if needed. It takes on a few minutes to put it together and less to take it apart.