Fine wire
Wire brought to the finest diameters through repeated cold drawing; within the BenderWire Group down to 11 µm (0.011 mm), finer than a human hair.
Knowledge · Glossary
Wire lexicon: the most important terms.
Whoever talks about wire needs precise terms. This lexicon explains the most important ones — short enough to look up, precise enough to cite. It grows with every new article on the Knowledge layer.
Terms at a glance
Wire rod
The starting material of wire production: hot-rolled wire (typically ~5.5 mm), from which all finer dimensions are produced through cold drawing.
Cold drawing
Forming wire through drawing dies at room temperature. Diameter shrinks, length grows, strength increases — from 5.5 mm to 1.2 mm gives roughly five times the length.
Drawing die
The tool with a conical bore through which the wire is drawn. It determines dimensional accuracy, surface and — for spring wire — straightness quality.
Annealing / recrystallisation
Heat treatment between draws: the structure deformed during drawing returns to its original state, the wire becomes formable again — and is set soft or hard as the customer requires.
soft-annealed vs. hard-drawn
Two delivery conditions: soft-annealed is ductile and easy to process further; hard-drawn has high tensile strength (1,500–2,000 N and more) at low elongation — sought after, e.g., by rope makers.
Microstructure
The internal crystal structure of the steel. It determines strength, formability and fatigue behaviour — and is deliberately set through drawing and annealing.
Non-metallic inclusion
A contamination in the microstructure, acting like a stone that's too large in concrete: a potential predetermined breaking point. Decisive at the finest diameters — which is why multiple or vacuum re-melted grades are used there.
Vacuum re-melted
An additional re-melting process under vacuum that reduces inclusions and improves purity and surface — standard for demanding medical applications (e.g. 304V).
Bright-drawn
A drawing process for smooth, shiny surfaces at tight tolerances; for medical wire also the basis for in-vitro test verifiability.
Strand vs. rope
A strand consists of several twisted individual wires; several strands together form a rope. Both combine flexibility with load-bearing capacity.
Wire knit vs. wire mesh
Knit is produced on circular knitting machines as a porous tube (permeable to air, gas, liquid — e.g. filters, demisters); mesh is produced from warp and weft on a loom (e.g. screens, facades, protective grilles).
Braiding
The interweaving of the finest wires, e.g. to form the reinforcing wire layer in a catheter: it provides torsional stiffness and pushability — not the polymer.
EDM wire
Wire for electrical discharge machining (spark erosion); listed as its own category by application, not by alloy.
Spool carrier
A winding carrier on which drawn wire is taken up and transported. Before shipment the alloy is checked at three points, so that no mixed materials are delivered.
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