Many years ago I scrounged a part used 15kg reel of MIG wire from a skip when we were cleaning out the Weld Lab at work. The reel wasn't in pristine condition, having been hoyed into a skip and hasn't got any better in the decades since. It was the wrong size for my welder, which only goes up to 5kg reels, meaining that I had to decant wire from it every time I needed to use some:-

In this condition, it could no longer be used because the wire tended to fall off the side and get kinked. I cut some scrap chipboard from a wardrobe build into circles on the bandsaw, used the bolt circle feature of the mill's DRO to stick a dozen holes in them and drilled an axle hole in the middle:-

These cheeks got bolted to the sides of the reel with lengths of M8 studding that I've used when making formwork for concrete walls. Then the assembly was mounted on a bit of bar that was clamped to the milling table (it being in about the right place):-

I'd scrounged some empty 5kg reels from a very helpful local welding shop, the third one that I'd phoned. Mounted on a mandrel on the lathe I could wind them at a leisurly 150rpm, although it did get a bit exciting when I overshot the low-stop-high positions on the lever and went to 600rpm! I ran it through one of those foam cleaner things you can get and also used bits of clean shop rag to guide the wire, tension it and clean it further. It had built up some contamination over the years :-

The end result of all this was a reel and a bit of clean wire which fit the welder and are now stored in zip-lock bags until I next need them:-

Finally, why go to all this faff over a bit of MIG wire. Well, it's Inconel 82. It welds carbon steel, stainless, cast iron and any combination thereof and I've used it for such purposes several times. It also costs about £700 if you need to buy a 15kg reel, when you can find it.

Edited By Mark Rand on 21/10/2022 16:40:25