How do you calculate the length of wire needed if you want to wrap a handle, or portion of a handle with twisted wire (single twist)? Untwisted wire - no problem, but I can't figure out how to figure out how much the twisting takes up. Sure- will depend on how tight the twist - but is there a good rule of thumb? +30 or 40% ??? If you are using inexpensive wire I guess you could just twist a "whole bunch" and toss out the left overs but what if you wanted to use silver or 14 k gold?

This is academic at this point but I saw a cool handle with a twist wrap acent and wanted to add this info to my "plans" folder.

Thanks,
John

A single strand of wire that has been doubled across your shop, will shrink about 1/3 after twisting tight.

Roughly,60 feet of wire (doubled) gives you about 20 feet of twisted wire.
(60 cut in half is 30, minus 1/3, equals 20 feet, or 1/3 the original length.)
These are ball-park estimates.
The wire diameter and how tight you twist it governs how much shrinkage.

Thanks Gene - I will put down 35% as a ballpark estimate.
John

Coudn't have said it better myself. :)

I once took 100 feet of thin gauge wire to make a wire twist wrap for my first knife...

I sat there with one end in a vise and 50 feet later I was out in the hallway with a hand drill at full blast for about 10 minutes.

I think I got about 70 feet of a nice, tight, twist. The surprising thing was using almost all of it on a relatively small handle.