Step 2.1

• Cut a piece of wire 11 meshes long.

• Trim the wire by removing one half mesh from both ends. See figures 1a and 1b. Your trimmed section should begin and end on a half-mesh and contain 9 meshes in between.

You may wonder why this trimming is necessary. Like a puzzle, all of the pieces need to fit together. If this trimming were not performed, then the parlor would not fit properly during assembly. Trust me on this!

Figure 1a. Trim wire as shown

Figure 1b. Wire properly trimmed.

Figure 1c.
Trimmed piece of wire ready to be shaped.

Note: The next time you make a crabpot, when you are comfortable with what the parlor looks like, you can skip all this trimming and simply cut the wire to fit directly from the roll. The trimming is necessary only because I didn't want to confuse the novice with "cutting on the half-mesh" and "cutting a full-mesh in half," which have two entirely different meanings.

Step 2.2

Figure 2.
Place a two-by-four across mesh #5.

• Place a two-by-four across the center of the wire completely covering mesh #5 (see Figure 2.)

Step 2.3

Figure 3.
Wire bent to form a "V" shape.

• Bend the wire around the two-by-four so that it forms a "V" or "tent" shape (see Figure 3.)

Step 2.4

Figure 4.
Properly bent piece of wire.

• Remove the two-by-four and flip the wire right-side-up (see Figure 4.)

Step 2.5

• Cut the funnels, leaving one full mesh intact on each side. Make the funnels by cutting the wires between three meshes (your funnels will be four hexagons wide.) Figure 5a shows where to make your first cut, and Figure 5b shows a completed funnel.

Step 2.6

Figure 6.
Completed parlor ready for installation.

• Stretch the parlor so that it is square when viewed from the top. Figure 6 shows a completed parlor ready for assembly.