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Feature
Fencing,
mesh-making
& netting
T
hese specialities lead double lives: public and private. Stainless steel
hex mesh is beautiful as well as utilitarian in a fireplace guard. In a
plainer setting, it holds in place the mineral wool blankets encasing
vessels and pipes in refineries, power plants, and refrigerated warehouses.
An ornamental fence of wrought iron and galvanised welded wire encloses
a classic garden. A fixed-knot fence manufactured from 12-½ gauge,
high-tensile, Class 3 galvanised wire is admired, if it is, by grazing livestock.
NASA-certified, 99% pure copper netting shields the windows of spacecraft.
Steel netting supplies the reinforced inlay in a common concrete pavement.
What these versatile products provide, in all their manifestations, is quality.
They must. Metal is most vulnerable where it is bent, and a panel of fence,
mesh, or netting incorporates many dozens or even hundreds of bends.
Every one of these is a point of potential failure. Any breach is an opening
to possible danger, great or small.
In this context – whether the application is netting to cover greenhouse
seedbeds or fencing for zoo enclosures – the term ‘weakest link’ takes on
special meaning. Fortunately for buyers and users of these superb products,
it is a meaning very well understood by the companies profiled in these
pages of EuroWire.
EuroWire – November 2008
63
Photo courtesy of
Ravni Technologies