Aesthetically Pleasing Safety Wire Twists

[patrickt]

A few days ago, in a thread that I can now not find, a member was commenting that he just couldn't get his safety wire twists to look good, even when using dedicated safety wire pliers. Yesterday, when I was removing a wheel, I thought of that post, so I picked up the camera to take a shot for him. Like almost everything in life, there is a trick that makes it easy to look good. That trick is start your twisting by hand, not with the pliers. Here it is:

When initially wrapping the wire around the spoke of the wheel, hand twist the wire tightly against the spoke. Do a couple of twists like this before using your pliers. This will allow the pliers twisting action to start fresh up against the spoke.



Then put the safety wire pliers on the end and it will perform a clean twist. Do that to a length right up against the end of the spinner; then bring an end of the wire though the drilled hole in your spinner and run a inch or two of twist and cut to an appropriate length.




The finished product.