Woven Mesh

The woven wire and wire crimping process is critical in producing consistent, top quality woven wire mesh. The below will provide more detail about the eight fundamental crimp styles: Plain, Lock, Intercrimp, Flat Top, Triple Shoot, Rigid Cable, Helix, and Twill. These styles are building blocks and can be combined and modified to produce endless compositions of texture and reflectivity.

Plain Crimp is a simple zigzag style of crimping where warp and fill wires intersect at every available pocket. With Pre-Crimped material, the Plain Crimp is most common when Mesh to Diameter (MD) Ratios are 4:1 or less. This un-tooled look produces a smooth and subtle pattern. Our designation for this crimp style is PL.

Lock Crimp is a more modern and very versatile crimp style that has been largely overlooked for architectural applications. Unlike Plain Crimp, Lock Crimp is characterized by straight sections of woven wire connected by a well-defined ‘bump’ at the wire intersections. Lock Crimp yields material with superb dimensional stability and has a clean look that many designers find visually appealing. Lock Crimp works well at practically any MD ratio of 4:1 and greater. Our designation for this crimp style is LC.

Flat top is really a modified version of Lock Crimp, except that all the crimping is offset to one side of the material. The result is a smooth plane in which all of the wire surfaces are flush with one another to give a flat appearance to the front of a Flat Top piece. The back side shows crimps approximately twice the height of a Lock Crimp. Originally developed to present a smooth surface to material flow, or as a backer screen for finer mesh, Flat Top is also used extensively in architectural applications. Our designation for this crimp style is FT.

While not really a fundamental crimp style, we choose to list it with the other crimp styles because of its widespread use. Intercrimp is simply Plain Crimp except that wire intersections occur only at every 3rd, 5th, 7th intersection, etc. This type of woven wire weave is practical only at MD ratios of 6:1 or more, and is best suited for ratios of 8:1 or more. We designate this style of weave as I3, I5, I7, etc. Our designation for this crimp style is I#.

Triple Shute is a specialty crimp style that is generally used in conjunction with another crimp style. It consists of relatively long sections of straight wire connected by groupings of three Plain Crimp pockets of woven wire. The resulting material has rectangular openings of very high aspect ratio. Developed originally as a non-blinding sizing product, it also has interesting architectural properties. Our designation for this crimp style is TS.

Rigid Cable is a variant of the triple shoot crimp style, but instead of having the clusters of three closely spaced wires separated by a small space, Rigid Cable has its clusters of wires (generally 2, 3, or 4) spaced tightly together with no gaps between adjacent wires. While some manufacturers produce this style of material by simply pressing groups of wires together, Banker Wire places special crimps in the surface of the wire. This technique assures absolute repeatability in the mesh spacing and eliminates any problems associated with cumulative pitch variation. Cumulative pitch variation can result in aesthetic problems when attempting to align multiple panels. Our designation for this crimp style is PS.

The Helix is a new crimp style with enormous design potential. For years, the woven wire mesh industry has been limited to making squares, rectangles, and diamonds. Banker Wire introduces a design that represents a whole new category of wire mesh construction. Naturally flowing circular shaped openings are created when intersecting the helical wires. The smooth lines created by the spiral shaped wires give this mesh a soft and tranquil look and feel. The helix can also be combined with any other fundamental crimp style, creating a truly unique woven wire mesh pattern. Our designation for this crimp style is HX.

Exploring further into traditional weave styles, Banker Wire refines the classic twill style weave for architectural purposes. Traditionally, the Twill style weave allows for a tighter mesh to diameter ratio which reduces the need to form the wire beyond its physical limitations. Four independent heddle frames on the loom allow for complex wire positioning that create a number of parallel diagonal pattern configurations. Pre-crimping a twill style wire mesh allows complete control of the unique visual detail, emphasizing the herringbone pattern in a large scale woven wire mesh. Our designation for this crimp style is TW.