I used a couple pieces of 2x3 for my swivel mount, one 8.5" long the other 5" long. Made into an "L" shape, the 5" piece laid flat. The longer piece set on top butted to one edge but turned 90 degrees so tension pulls against the edge of the upright 2x3, not the wider face of it. Leaves a bit of a small shoulder on the top face of the bottom 2x3. Screwed together from under the bottom piece with a couple wood screws. Then I measured the height of the jaws of my drill when laying on its side and screwed a screw through the eyelet of one of the swivels to mount it to the edge of the bottom 2x3. For my drill that ended up being an inch to 1 1/8" high. Then I mounted a keyring flat to the edge of the upright 2x3 using two screws inside the circumference of the ring angled outward to put pressure on the keyring. Hooked the eyelet of a swivel to the keyring like you would a key.
I only used 2x3's because I had scrap pieces on hand, 2x4 would work fine just be a tad bulkier. The setup is clamped to the left side of my desk so looks more like a J than an L. The clamp squeezes down on the protruding part of the J. I've got a variety of cheap bar clamps from harbor freight ($2-3 each) so that's what I'm using and they hold strong.
Forget the exact swivels I got, picked them up on amazon. Thkfish or something maybe, they're #3 coastlock ball bearing swivels. Got a pack of 30 for like $10 and free shipping using prime. I have 3 daisy chained together. Amazon also has a decent pair of cheapo side flush cutters. Hako chp-170's for like $4. I got a pair of plano 170 or something like that from fasttech for like $2-3 but was already ordering. Wouldn't recommend a month long wait or longer just to save $1 on cutters.
Lots of different 'tricks' for claptons, clothespins, paperclips, there's even little bead looking things with a cut out for the wires for various core gauges. The core wires go through and the keepers help the cores on fused claptons from twisting or collapsing. I tried paperclips, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. The last time the cores still collapsed even though I used like 5 paperclips for 12-15" of fused clapton. To be fair they're shitty weak plastic coated paperclips from the dollar store, just what I had on hand.
The little helper beads I was thinking of are Patino's alien makers, they're 3d printed. Like $10 for a set of them, each set is a different size. Not the most economical if you want different sizes (quickly adds up). I only see them for 26ga, 28ga and 30ga on their site but thought I saw 24ga mentioned somewhere. Looks like they work better than a paperclip maybe. Yea found a place that has all the sizes including 24ga, the std ones hold 3-4 cores, there are widebody versions that hold 5-6 cores.
https://subbiesjuice.com/collections/patinos-coil-smithing/products/alien-makers-v2
Maybe other places have them but this is one that popped up for the U.S. (others were Europe). Never bought them, used them or bought from subbies juice so can't comment about usability or anything.
