difficulty twisting 34g kanthal

[JTman]

Ive watched several vids on using a drill to twist kanthal wire. I bought 34g quite a while ago before I had any clue what was going on, and before micro coils were well known. I have been trying to do a single twist. All seems to go well, I build a hook out of a paperclip and put that in the drill chuck. I manually twist the ends 5-6 times and clamp with pliers. I keep tension on the wire as I drill it up. I let the drill go until the wire breaks at the hook. The wire looks good, no kinks, but when I cut pieces off to work with it starts to unravel. Last time I torched the wire before working with it but it still starts to unravel.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Its not a terribly big deal that I'm wasting it. I have probably 90 feet left of otherwise useless kanthal (I love 28g micro coils!)

 

[G-weezy]

Go to your local stores and get one of these. They are cheap and come in a bunch for couple dollars. Your Kanthal won't slip no more.

 

[Dissonance]

Try using a larger gauge wire. I've never used 34g, but 32g was crazy springy for me. I can only imagine 34g to be worse.

 

[SLIPPY_EEL]

the only thing i can add is that when you've cut your twisted 34g that you manually twist the ends back up with two sets of pliars or tweezers, forceps and small G-clamps are also good for this kind of work.

you should try braiding that wire, i'm not saying braiding it will stop ends unravalling etc but you should be good if you start off with one end in a G-clamp as you braid, its better vapour and flavour wise than twisted

 

[JTman]

So it sounds like its more a property of the wire than error in technique. Those hooks are a great idea, much more elegant than a bent paper clip, though i didn't have any slipping with my rudimentary set-up.

I will try to braid the wire and see how that works out. Awesome link right in your signature Slippy =)