Respooling stiff wire can be tricky (forming springs, for example). You'll
most likely be better off by making a fixture that will support the full
spool, somewhat intact.. such as an axle of allthread with plates and nuts
on each side, with a small rubbing block (or similar) to offer a small
amount of resistance to turning.. just enough that the full reel won't
coast, or cause unnecessary tension.

Any time stiff wire is removed/taken off of a spool, the wire will tend to
straighten slightly. Spooling machines have an arrangement of rollers that
put a "set" curvature in the wire as it's fed onto the empty spool, which
compensates for the straightening that takes place between the spools.
This coiling action causes the wire to cling slightly to the empty spool as
it fills. Otherwise, when we release the tied end from the spool of welding
wire, the entire length of wire would try to unspool/expand.

So you can't expect that the wire will get the proper "set" just from
winding it around a spool.. it won't unless it's dead soft wire (like lead
solder).
The coil set is somewhat permanent, as we can see by feeding a length of
wire out of a MIG torch.. it's still curled, just not as tightly as the wire
that's still on the spool.

If there are tangles at the beginning of the full spool, it will be easier
to just cut those away, and save them as filler for TIG use.

There are basically 2 parameters that need to be considered,
monitored/adjusted for a good spooling job.. the coil "set", and tension.
If too much tension is applied in the transfer, the wire won't peel of of
the new spool properly, due to turns being wedged between other turns, and
may even bow the sides of the spool outward.
Tension should remain very light, and the proper amount of coil "set" will
ensure that the wire clings to the spool as it fills.

On production spooler machines, the coil set is carefully adjusted with a
series of small ball bearing posts (~3/4" OD with partial grooves ground
into their outer races) arranged so the coil set can be adjusted to a
predictable coil size for the empty spool.

A simple example of this is to pull a strip of paper at an extreme angle,
over a sharp edge.. the paper ends up being curled.
The same applies to other materials, and the harder the material, the less
curl will be introduced unless more pressure is applied.. not tension, but
pressure.
When spooling common coated MIG wire, it's crucial to not remove the
protective coating/plating from the wire, so a MIG wire spooler has only
rotating smooth surfaces to guide the wire.

In the wire path, just before the empty spool, the wire passes thru a series
of 3 fixed points, located relatively closely together. The 3 fixed points
should be rollers, so they don't introduce tension. The 3 points act as the
sharp corner that the paper was pulled over, but the "corner" becomes the
center roller.
As the center roller is adjusted slightly into the path of the wire, it
creates the coil set.

The amount of coil set is determined by how much the wire is slightly
deformed/bent just before it reaches the empty spool.
What coil set adjustments on spooling machines accomplish is generating the
proper diameter of the coil just before the wire loads on the empty spool by
slightly distorting the wire, not by tension.

A simple respooler can be fabricated with a small motor and a couple of
axles. The drive mechanism could be a belt or even a friction wheel (applied
to the empty spool/axle), from say, a small gearmotor. The drive reduction
speed could be low to start with, and as the operator gets comfortable with
the feed speed, the drive can be sped up.

Unless one would care to build a fairly complex spooling machine, the
operator will be responsible for guiding/laying the turns across the width
of the spool.. maintaining a level wrap.

--
WB
..........


"Ignoramus7319" wrote in message
...
This Inconel welding wire, unfortunately came with both spools
busted.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_-kRj5FFJSGU/TR...2018.25.50.jpg

I have reasons to believe that it happened during shipping.

Anyway, given that this is Inconel, expensive stuff, I am wondering
how I can fix this situation, if at all. Maybe I can somehow respool
the wire with the lathe, or fix the broken spools. The spools cannot
be put together back with wire on it, the wire would not let me.

These are standard 30 lbs spools.

This is 0.045" Inconel wire and it is quite tough.

i