It's nice to discover new options! I was set in my ways for so long convinced that it couldn't get any better! I FINALLY ran out of 2mm RxW as 1 foot lasted me over a year with multiple devices running. When going to reorder I figured why not try something different so I went with the 3mm and larger coil. Glad I did!!!
I also wanted to try the new Coil master V3 that everyone has been raving about vs. my trusty pin vise. After a couple of trial coils I determined that I couldn't quite get the tension wind I was getting using the pin vise method. So... I cheated! I tried using the coil master but not using the "winder" part of it. I simply threaded the wire thru the hole as designed but then just held down the end of the wire where the feed hole is with my thumb then tensioned wound by hand like using the pin vise. The coil master body is comfortable in the hand when winding and the long sturdy mandrel was strong enough to apply tension while winding. When done winding I then slid on the "winding" part of the coil master to squeeze the winds together to eliminate any small gaps in the wind. It worked great! Best of both worlds, nice 2.5 mandrell of the coil master with the tension win capability of a pin vise!
This is really interesting. When I was tensioning, I used a very heavy vise-grip clamp on the "free" end of the kanthal. I quit tensioning when I used the CoilMaster. Using the same vice-grip as a weight made certain the tension was always the same, I am going to try that using the CoilMaster.
