%mJAUo+USS37DaVUlC6HF1axS0/jYmPDsc/4KDcamCVo=.sha256The Art of the Bodge
On the ubiquity of the 2.5mm² copper wire in the home, the home shop, and life en général.
As I'd been cutting off the last twenty centimeters off the roll of my trusty 2.5mm² wire recently, my first thought was "ah bloody hell, I've gone and run out!", which's made me realise just how ubiquitous it's become.
Indeed, since getting it, I've used it to hold reaxion flasks,
Fig. 1: Reaction flask and an apparatus affixed to the base with some 2.5mm² ground wire.
Interface with some old speakers,
Fig. 2: Old speaker connectors, plugged by the very same 2.5mm² ground wire.
Hold ball mill chambers in place (that's coming, probably?), as glide bearings for work-rollers on a belt sander (definitely coming), and, more day-to-daily, as easily assemblable custom hangers for things that are otherwise un- or hardly hangable.
Fig. 3: Three custom hooks, for a belt (left), leather strips (center). welding mask (right), and the last piece of the raw stock (right).
It is, without doubt, a borderline genuine wundermaterial: conductive or non-conductive with no more than a snap of one's knife, hard enough to support a family, but soft enough to be easily malleable with no more than one's hands. And, perhaps most importantly, it's almost-dirt-cheap.
Fig. 4: Those same hooks, now occupied (rack de-cluttered for clarity, usually much fuller).
This has been my ode to the 2.5mm² copper wire, and I'll leave you with the most time- and space-conserving implement of them all, a double-hanger for faceshields:
Fig. 5: Double-hanger for faceshields, which I didn't have the heart to take off, the poor sod (would've needed to uncoil it, and what's good in bothering the old bugger).