If you're like me, and I know I am, you have spools of wire or solder sitting around. I generally put mine in the cabinet above my desk. Lately, with more projects going on, I find myself pulling them down out of the cabinet constantly. I had a collection of the most used spools sitting on the workbench cluttering it up. Well, no more, I say! Here's how I organized them and made it easier to pull pieces from them quickly:
I have so many of those red Sparkfun shipping boxes sitting around. For some reason, I can't seem to find a reason to break them down and recycle them. Turns out, two of them are the perfect size to hold FOUR spools of my 22 AWG colored solid core wire:
Trim the flaps a bit, add two pieces of pine trim or dowel and poke some holes. Boom! Recycled wire dispenser. Works great at keeping my spools organized (and spooled). They stack nicely, too.
I traced the profile of the trim onto the box with the rounded side up and cut the holes with an X-acto. Poked little triangular holes in the top. The wedge shape of the triangles help by kinda gripping the wire so it doesn't fall back into the box.