I needed to pull wire in a wall to hook up some speakers on my porch. I thought about buying a fish tape, but the cheapest one at Home Depot was $17 — too much for a onetime-use tool. Thinking about the problem on the ride home, I hit on the idea of using my 25-ft. tape measure instead. Pulling the tape all the way out, I found that its inner end has a slot that hooks to the rewind spring. I separated tape from spring and kept the spring from rewinding hopelessly into its case by wrapping its end with a cable tie. Then I fed the tape into the wall. When the tape reached the bottom of the cavity, I tied a length of mason’s twine to the slot. I pulled the twine with the tape, then pulled the wire with the much-stronger twine. The tape went back together nicely, and my only cost was the fraction of a penny for the cable tie.
Jeff Van Dine, Gold Bar, WA
