Cobber replied to the topic 'Front rear and side vent grill replacement mesh.' in the forum.
4 months ago
I've done the maintenance engineering in wire mesh manufacturing plants.One thing I forgot to mention...
With this type of mesh, the crossing wires are not welded so the smaller pieces tend to come apart if you aren't careful. I fixed them in various ways. Using body fixings, Araldite and a hot glue gun. The glue gun was easiest but not the neatest (see the front grille)
Actually it is welded, but not in the sense you might think, the machine that makes it takes the long wires from spools and the cross wires that are either pre cut lengths laid across, or taken off spools, laid across and cut it situ, then the two directions of wires are pressed together and an electrical current applied to fuse the wires together.
These welds strength is limited by the thickness of the wires used, very thin wires can only bare a small amount of electrical current before overheating so as a result this can limit the strength of the welds. the current used can be effectively varied by the dwell (amount of time a given current is applied) or the strength of the current itself
Thicker mesh such as the reinforcing mesh used in concrete has very strong welds done in the same manner but with a shit load more current put through it.
The expanded security mesh I mentioned is punched by a machine from a solid sheet of metal into a mesh with a bit of a cheese grater like wavy textured pattern, it is much stronger and to me it looks better.
Read More...