Wire mesh
Wire mesh
Mesh is an opening pattern in wire. Weavers crimp and interlace it. We resistance-weld it. Same words — mesh, warp, shute, opening — different machines. This page is the glossary. The floor is 4–14 mm welded cloth, rims, and grids.
Woven cloth and welded cloth
Woven wire cloth is warp wires down the roll and shute (fill) wires across it, locked by crimp. Plain, Dutch, twill — that is a loom. Openings can be a few microns. That is not this cell.
Welded wire cloth lays warp and shute flat, no crimp, and fuses every intersection. That is cross-wire resistance weld. Pitch is center-to-center, not “200 mesh.” Diameters live in our band: 4–14 mm, stock 3/8, 7/16, and 1/2 in. Process depth: mesh grids and cable trays.
A print that says “wire mesh” without weave or weld, opening, and diameter is not a mesh spec. It is a request to invent one.
What this shop quotes
- Welded square and rectangular openings in 4–14 mm
- Rims, returns, and frames on CNC — then the grid
- Baskets, shelves, guards, trays, fence panels — mesh grids, stainless baskets, stainless shelves
- Infill lighter than 4 mm called out as bought cloth or a no-quote
Fine filter weaves, micronic cloth, and calendered 2-micron ratings belong to a weaver. We form the heavy members those screens hang on, or we skip the weave and weld the opening from coil.
Weave types
Industry names. Weavers run them. Use them on a cloth PO. Do not paste “plain Dutch” onto a 1/2 in welded guard and expect the loom definition to hold.
| Weave | What it is | This floor |
|---|---|---|
| Plain weave | Each warp and each shute pass over one wire and under the next. Crimp happens in the weave. | Weaver. Our analog is a square welded opening. |
| Plain Dutch weave | Warp generally larger than shute. Shute packed tight — dense cloth with wedge-shaped openings. Filter, not a guard. | Not a 4–14 mm weld pattern. |
| Reverse Dutch weave | Higher wire count in the warp, smaller count in the shute — the reverse of plain and twilled Dutch. | Weaver / filter house. |
| Twilled weave | Each warp and each shute pass over two wires and under the next pair. More flexible than plain at the same diameter. | Weaver. |
| Twilled Dutch double weave | Twilled Dutch with smaller, overlapping shute wires — more shutes per linear inch, higher density. | Micron-class cloth. Not this cell. |
| Welded wire cloth | Warp and shute lay flat. No crimp. Every crossing is a weld. | This is the product. Resistance nugget at the intersection; MIG or TIG on the rim. |
| Long slot | Shute wires clustered so openings are rectangles, not squares. | We quote rectangular pitch: long way parallel or perpendicular to the length — name it. |
Crimp
Crimp is the corrugation that locks woven wires where they cross. Welded cloth does not crimp. If the print says “double crimp mesh” and the diameter is 3/8 in, ask whether they meant a weld or a loom.
| Crimp | Lock |
|---|---|
| Crimp | Corrugations so perpendicular wires sit in a pocket when they cross. |
| Double crimp | Both warp and shute are pre-crimped before weaving. Each wire lays in each crimp. |
| Intermediate crimp | Warp and shute lay in every other crimp. |
| Double intermediate crimp | Usually the warp sits in every crimp of the shute, and the shute sits in every other crimp of the warp. |
Pre-crimp is a weaving setup. On a welded grid the “lock” is the nugget. Specify weld type, not crimp style, unless you are buying roll cloth from a mill.
Mesh terms
Mesh count is openings per linear inch, center of one wire to a point 1 in away — also called count. Opening (space, clear opening) is the gap between adjacent parallel wires. Opening is not mesh count. Diameter changes one without the other.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Mesh / count | Openings in a linear inch. Square mesh is the same count both ways. Fine counts are woven. We spec pitch (center-to-center) in inches or mm on welded work. |
| Square mesh | Same count (or pitch) in warp and shute. |
| Rectangular openings | Long dimension parallel or perpendicular to the length — call it out. Same idea as long-slot weave, welded. |
| Clear opening / space | Gap between adjacent parallel wires. Not affected by how you name the diameter — only by the actual diameter and pitch. |
| Open area | Open space as a percentage of the panel. Load, airflow, and OSHA reach-through all live here. |
| Warp wires | Run the length of the cloth as woven (or the long way of a panel). |
| Shute / fill wires | Run across the width as woven (cross wires on a welded grid). |
| Gauge | A wire-size nickname. Specify diameter in decimals (0.375 in, 9.53 mm) — not “9 gauge.” Gauges disagree by standard. |
| Market grades | Common industrial cloth sizes for general work. A starting catalog, not a furnace-basket spec. |
| Micronic mesh | Woven filter cloth with a nominal micron rating (down to ~2 µm) and designed flow. Not 4–14 mm. |
| Calendered wire cloth | Run through heavy rolls to reduce thickness or flatten intersections for a smoother face. A weaving finish. |
| Selvage | Finished edges down the roll so woven cloth does not unravel. Welded panels get a rim or a return instead. |
Pitch on this floor is named in inches or millimeters, wire diameter in decimals, material by grade (1018, 304, 316, 330). “½ mesh” without a diameter is ambiguous. “1 in centers × 0.375 in 304, welded” is a grid.
What to put on the print
- Welded or woven — pick one
- Pitch or mesh count, both directions if they differ
- Clear opening if the job is a screen or a guard
- Wire diameter in decimals for warp and shute (they can differ)
- Rim diameter if the border is heavier than the infill
- Weld: resistance on crossings, MIG/TIG on corners and mounts
- Overall size, returns, mounts
- Alloy and finish after weld
Design rules that still apply to a formed rim: design for wire forming. Instant ballpark: instant quote.