Napkin/letter Holder from Scrap

[Lawrence L'Hote]

I'll be taking that desk I've spoken about recently up to my son's house for delivery. I've been asked to sit with my 7 yr. old grandson while his mother takes my granddaughter(who is getting the desk for her birthday) with her to O'Hare to pick up my DIL's sister. Usually, my grandson and I just kick the soccer ball around or play catch but I think it's time he be getting into making things. Well I had some scrap left over from that desk and a coupla years ago I got this 20 ft. long electrical cable(along with a box of other good elect stuff) for $10 at a yard sale. This cable has 4 strands, each strand has 7 12 gauge copper wires in it. The cable easily weighs 20 lbs or so. What are shown here is the prototype of what the boy and I will be making. I will cut the base and drill the holes. Up there we'll cut the wire, sand it a bit and clear coat the thing. He'll present one for his mom when she gets back and give one to his dad to hold the letters on his desk at work.. I'm taking up enough supplies to make 7 or eight of the things... He could send one to his other grandparents for Xmas or, better yet, go into business. Oh!, I didn't take all the necessary time and effort to bend the wire so the loops are tidy...I'll leave that up to the grandson. TIA for looking. pix about 60 kb and also posted to a.b.p.w.

[Willie Jones]

"Lawrence L'Hote" wrote in news:I45Rc.242728$JR4.8969@attbi_s54:

A cutoff piece of 2x4 will help with that, will give you regular corners and serve as a gauge for cutting the wire.

[Lawrence L'Hote]

Willie, that's a good idea. I had in mind of making some sort of template but that idea sounds better. Thanks.

Larry

[Lawrence L'Hote]

I used Willie's idea and redid the wire....looks much better but they still could use a little fine tuning.

[J.B. Bobbitt]

IIRC, Lee Valley offers a nifty wire-bending form that'd be perfect for this application.

-jbb

[J.B. Bobbitt]

'd be easy enough to make your own as well.

-jbb

[Lawrence L'Hote]

> It'd be easy enough to make your own as well.

That's what I did. The template is a 2x6 piece of a bedframe I got from a dumpster. The wire(#12) goes through the little silver clip and against the little oak index. It is then bent around and cut off on the other side at the mark. If you look closely you can see some indentations from the hand bending process. This indentation would preclude using a hide mallet to whomp the wire into shape.