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Recycled Sparkfun Shipping Box Wire Dispenser

If you're like me, and I know I am, you have spools of wire or solder sitting around. I generally put mine in the cabinet above my desk. Lately, with more projects going on, I find myself pulling them down out of the cabinet constantly. I had a collection of the most used spools sitting on the workbench cluttering it up. Well, no more, I say! Here's how I organized them and made it easier to pull pieces from them quickly:

Sparkfun Shipping Box Wire Dispenser

I have so many of those red Sparkfun shipping boxes sitting around. For some reason, I can't seem to find a reason to break them down and recycle them. Turns out, two of them are the perfect size to hold FOUR spools of my 22 AWG colored solid core wire:

Sparkfun Shipping Box Plus Two Pieces of Pine Trim

Trim the flaps a bit, add two pieces of pine trim or dowel and poke some holes. Boom! Recycled wire dispenser. Works great at keeping my spools organized (and spooled). They stack nicely, too.

Pine trim poking through custom-shaped holes, rounded side up

I traced the profile of the trim onto the box with the rounded side up and cut the holes with an X-acto. Poked little triangular holes in the top. The wedge shape of the triangles help by kinda gripping the wire so it doesn't fall back into the box.