An apparatus for feeding wire to wire-processing machines, in which the wire is drawn off from a pay-off reel holding a wire coil and rotatable about a spindle and fed to a wire feeder upstream of the wire-processing machine, wherein at least one wire-deflecting device, via which the wire drawn off from the pay-off reel is guided and released towards the wire feeder, is connected downstream of the pay-off reel in the wire draw-off direction, and wherein a wire-storage device is provided upstream of the wire feeder, this apparatus presents a guide path, forming a closed circuit, on which the wire runs and the diameter of which can be altered between a smaller value corresponding to an inner radial position of the guide path and a larger value corresponding to an outer radial position of the guide path, wherein the guide path is spring-pretensioned towards the outer radial position.

A meandering amount detection method for a metal strip traveling in a state of being overlapped in a plurality of stages, includes: calculating an end portion position in a width direction of a metal strip in each stage using an angle formed by a reference direction, which is any direction determined from a reference point, and a direction connecting the reference point and an end portion position in a width direction of a metal strip in each stage, a distance between the reference point and an end portion position in a width direction of a metal strip in each stage, and a distance between a straight line including a width direction of the metal strip and the reference point; and calculating a meandering amount of a metal strip in each stage based on the calculated end portion position in the width direction of the metal strip in each stage.