Wire Drawing

The process of making wire is known as wire drawing. Rods of the metal pointed at one end are drawn through holes in steel plates. The rod is passed through holes successively smaller until the required size is reached. As the metal is being worked it gradually hardens and becomes less ductile, so that the wire must be annealed.

Brass wire may be made so fine, that gauze may be woven of it containing 67,000 meshes in a square inch. Of course, no gauze so fine as this is found in the articles in the Housefurnishings Department, but many of the fine meshed sifters are made of brass wire. Another method of insuring fineness in such articles as tea strainers is to make them of two thicknesses of wire gauze.

In egg beaters and potato mashers, the steel wire is bent into the various shapes first and then tinned.