Products

We produce continuous systems of masonry wall reinforcing including truss and ladder designs. Variations are available to these standard designs to meet specific wall conditions and are illustrated in this catalog.

WIRE-BOND® offers unit ties designed to tie masonry walls to steel, concrete, and masonry. They are manufactured in various finishes and sizes to meet specific conditions as shown.

Special Material

Our manufacturing capabilities allow us to make a wide variety of products, some of which are not shown here. Please contact us for specific advice and availability of any item you may require for masonry walls.

Why Hot-Dip Galvanize?

In a perfect environment steel corrodes very slowly and offers strength and durability for a variety of structural applications. The environment most masonry reinforcing is exposed to, however, is usually less than perfect, and the premature corrosion of steel reinforcement may ultimately lead to failure of the structure.

The corrosion products which form on steel have much greater volume than metal from which they form. This increase in volume produces a build up of internal “bursting” pressure between the reinforcement and the surrounding mortar or concrete. When the pressure increases beyond the tensile strength of the masonry, the walls crack. As corrosion proceeds, longitudinal and transverse cracks widen, and may cause spalling of the joints. The presence of hairline cracks may not indicate evidence of impending structural distress. However, their presence may be considered a “failure” by the general public, and costly maintenance may be necessary to keep up public confidence in the structure and to prevent further corrosion.

Carefully controlled tests, and decades of experience in the field, have shown that hot dip galvanizing of the steel reinforcement will materially increase the life of reinforced structures. Hot dip galvanizing is the process of coating a prepared steel surface by immersion of the work in molten zinc. The hot dip galvanized coating consists of a series of distinct zinc-iron alloy layers. The coating is unique in that it is metallurgically bonded to the steel substrate. The strength of the bond is measured in the range of several thousand psi, which insures that the coating will not be damaged during normal handling. The zinc-iron alloys of a galvanized coating have hardness values which equal or exceed those of most structural steels, offering excellent abrasion resistance for applications such as masonry wire reinforcing. The pure zinc layer and the zinc-iron layers are anodic to steel, providing sacrificial or “cathodic” protection in the event the coating is scratched or damaged.

Zinc metal has a number of characteristics that make it well suited for use as a coating for protecting steel wire products. Its excellent corrosion resistance and its ability to form dense, adherent, corrosion product films, and a rate of corrosion some 10 to 100 times below that of ferrous materials, depending upon the atmosphere, accounts for its successful use as a protective coating in a variety of products and exposure conditions.

All hot dipped WIRE-BOND products are galvanized in accordance with ASTM A153 Standards to insure the longest life possible for our products. The marginal increase in cost for galvanizing is more than offset by the extra service life added to our product by the galvanizing process.

Wirebond   |   400 Roundtree Road   |   Charlotte, North Carolina 28224   |   704 525 5554   |   800 849 6722