Looking for ideas to keep SS woven wire screen from unraveling

[dbb-the-bruce]

Seems most of the responses are about welding or soldering.
The size you talking about is huge in relationship to the number of wires that would need to be dealt with.
Perhaps a folded channel with epoxy or some other sort of resin type of stuff. Could be tricky but would get all the wires captured.

I've had to deal with this on a smaller scale with copper mesh. I pealed one or two rows off of / out of each side and twisted pairs together along the length of each side and trimmed the twists where needed. Worked really well as a simple mechanical connection.

Could be much harder with SS instead of copper and would take a while on an 8' run. But that seems true for a lot of the suggestions here.

 

[WobblyHand]

Rolling/folding around a wire along the edge? Sort of like a ? Might be able to make some sort of tool like thing that you slide along that crimps the screen around a wire? Welding every 10th wire sounds pretty tedious over 8 feet. Fortunately a spot weld is self fixturing as the tips hold the wires in place. Can't imagine trying to silver solder that - sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

Or a variant of the above and probably a whole lot easier... How about folding over a small strip of thin metal along the edge? That you could spot weld every so often. Like a U around the wire edge. If you used stainless strip it would maintain it's rust free properties. I'm thinking that would be a lot easier to do. If you had a good crimper you could use that instead of spot welding the strip.

 

[francist]

Or a variant of the above and probably a whole lot easier... How about folding over a small strip of thin metal along the edge? That you could spot weld every so often. Like a U around the wire edge.

This is what I was thinking too but was trying to imagine a way to make a nice tight fold that would stay closed along the edge. In my mind's eye I can see the edges of range hood filters, screen door screens, etc that all have that light gauge metal frame around the outside. Maybe spot welding every few inches would do it, though?

 

[Dave Smith]

how about a clear silicone caulk around the edges?
Dave

 

[great white]

Put it one the edge of a table with the tails sticking out over the edge. Clamp a straight piece of metal stock over the mesh at the tables edge. Grab a hammer and bend all the tails up. Remove flat stock and finish peening over the tails to capture the end wire.

Repeat for the other 3 sides.

Easy peasy. Basically, a poor mans long sheet metal brake for wire mesh.

 

[keeena]

So - the silver solder is a no go. It probably would work with enough practice? The heat control is very tricky with a propane torch and its extremely easy to overheat the mesh. I could not get good flow/wetting.

Final verdict: I've changed the design to use shorter lengths (3' instead of 8') and I'm bending the edges.