Hey Mark, try just placing the roll of wire in bucket and drill a hole ( size of wire) in the side of bucket, just pull the wire through the hole. if you want you could put a round dowel in the middle of bucket and attach it with a dry wall screw. Better yet place another bottom of a bucket on top of wire roll and you can carry your cutters and tools in the bucket. making a dummy bottom. mom roseanell

Drill three holes approximately halfway in the bucket;

Two on opposite sides to hold the axle that holds the spool of wire.

A smaller hole is used to feed the wire through. Put e.g. a clothespin on the wire on the inside of the hole. That should prevent you from pulling the wire too fast.

Another option is to place the feed-out hole so that pulling on the wire pulls the spool against the side of the bucket and thus slowing it down.

Roland and Rosenell --- Both are excellent ideas! That should give Mark a lot of fodder for experimentation.

This brings to mind the spools of wire on my MIG welders and the problems with not enough tension. All you need to do is slip a coil spring over the "axle",furr out the gap with washers, drilled dowel, piece of conduit, pipe etc whatever and pass the wire through a hole in rim of bucket. Identical to how you keep tension on welding wire in wire feed welders.

Bob --- If I understand you correctly, that's actually close to what Mark was envisioning as his round two of experimentation. We used some wire vises on our grape trellises several years ago and found one that will match this smaller wire. Mark figures installing it in the side of the bucket will keep the wire taut.