Remesh Tool Rack with no Fasteners

If you have used concrete reinforcing mesh (Remesh) before you've probably noticed that it is a bit of a double-edged sword.  Or, more appropriately, a hundred-pointed spear.  Any time you try to move or cut it, or even look at it funny, one of the points stabs you or snags on your clothes or hooks around another section of the mesh... it's a pain.

If ever there was a "problem is the solution" situation, this is one of them.  What if, instead of puncturing my hands and legs, the pointy ends punctured something in need of puncturing?  And what if, instead of snagging on every damn thing there is, the mesh snagged things that need snagging?  And thus the Remesh Tool Rack was born.

The TL;DR on this one is that you bend and sharpen some parts to make integral nails, then bend and dull some other parts to make integral hooks, and hammer the whole thing into some wood to make a quick, ultra-cheap tool rack with no additional fasteners required.

The pictures really explain this one better than I can, but there are a couple notes to add:
- The parts that become the integral nails should have their ends cut at as sharp of an angle as your cutters can manage.  They should also be bent to slightly acute angles before hammering, as they have a tendency to flatten out as you knock them in.
- The hooks can be any shape you want, but try to make it in a single bend, or very few bends.  The steel wire is extremely strong in tension but fatigues easily, sometimes bending the same spot just two or three times will snap it off.
- The rack can be any shape, and hooks/nails can be made in the middle of sections wherever you need.  Just make sure you aren't cutting all the support to one section.
- Sorry some pictures are a bit hard to decipher, turns out that rust-color blends in with almost every background.

Shoutout to Samantha Lewis for getting all the Remesh and testing its pointy-ness.  Just to be sure, I tested it a bunch as well.

This is part of the MoPID series of permaculture innovations that I am working on during my time at Wheaton Labs.  Check out the thread if you'd like to follow along.

Neat idea!   After making tomato cages with remesh it's possible to have little bits like this and that's a cool use.  

Rounding off the hook ends would be an added nice touch.  The least sharp way I've found to cut remesh is with a cut-off wheel on a grinder.  It's very square but still kinda sharp.  Maybe hitting them with a sanding wheel on a grinder would make them even rounder...

Mike Haasl wrote:Neat idea!   After making tomato cages with remesh it's possible to have little bits like this and that's a cool use.  

Rounding off the hook ends would be an added nice touch.  The least sharp way I've found to cut remesh is with a cut-off wheel on a grinder.  It's very square but still kinda sharp.  Maybe hitting them with a sanding wheel on a grinder would make them even rounder...

That's a good call Mike!  I got lazy near the end of this project and skipped that step, and it will surely come back to stab me later.  I think you're right about the sanding wheel, I gave it a shot with a crosscut metal file and the ends just bounce around like crazy with almost no material taken off.