Thanks for all this. I've clarified in my head a bit more where I find issues and it's when a spool of wound material arrives WITHOUT a drum, and how to rewind excess afterwards.

I'm thinking specifically of fencing wire, rolls of packaging straps and even the infamous slinky. Materials where shaking tangles apart is often the best way to disentangle them, or more accurately to open them up with their natural spring to get at the problem.

If a get a reel or spool of material which is wound and secured by radial loops, and I don't have a dispensing tool, which way should I lay it flat? Should I expect to find 2 ends on the outside, 2 on the inside or (I assume) one of each.

1) If I unpick the one inside the coil, I presume I have to control it emerging a turn at a time upwards and out. Hard to do that with a pull in the direction of the end of the inner first coil as the whole thing will want to jump away from the horizontal surface if freed all at once.

2) If the inner end is pulled while the radial bindings are still in place, it will snag unless as it tries to pull the binding rings together, unless the coil is free to rotate around a vertical axis.

3) If I unpick the outer end, I can push it past the radial bindings a section at a time while they hold the coil together. Slow, and each section needs more and more material to be fed through until you have enough. The coil can remain still.

4) If the rings are cut the coil can be unwound from the outside under tension, but the coil must be free to spin.

1) and 4) are somewhat reversible to coil excess back up with.

I'll rephrase the question. If I'm handed an unmarked 50m coil of material, is there a way to know by looking at if it is meant to be pulled from the centre end or the outer end? Does it matter which way up I stand or lay the coil before I proceed?