Background
When I visited
United Wire Works in 1991 and 1992, the company manufactured much of
its own wire, copper, nickel, etc, but not stainless steel.
That was bought in.
However the United Wire Works wire manufacturing plant closed
around 2001. The company now buys in all the wire that it
weaves, most of it being stainless steel.
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Drawing and Annealing the wire
The photo above looks down on some of the drawing machines.
The wire produced was then drawn through a succession of these
machines, each time becoming longer and thinner. Sometimes the
drawings continued until the wire was only 0.25mm thick.
The wire was also annealed by heating to soften it and restore
some of its properties after having been stressed by the drawing.
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