Diamond Hole Expanded Aluminium Mesh , Square Expanded Metal Anodise Surface

The expanded metal process was invented by John French Golding in 1884. His goal was to create a tray, or metal screen, with which miners in the United Kingdom could sort coal. His expanded metal screen was preceded by sorting tools made from metal strip or woven wire. These tools were largely inefficient and not standardized. Also, they were not terribly strong. Golding’s invention was made not from multiple strips or wires, but rather from a single metal sheet. This made them more durable than the other sorting tools. In addition, the expanded metal process yields screens with uniform open areas.

Five years after inventing metal expansion, Golding and a group of other people in the industry pooled their expertise and research to form their own company. They first named it the British Metal Expansion Company, then later changed it to the Expanded Metal Company Limited, of London. For a number of years, the Expanded Metal Company had a monopoly on metal expansion in Europe, as they owned sole rights to the process.

In the 1890s, Eli Hendrick, an American, invented the punching machine, the predecessor of modern perforating punches. Perforating punches allow for the creation of perforated metals, which are expanded metals’ close relative.

The first person to receive a patent to expand metal in the United States was a man named Charles H. Schrammel. Awarded the patent in 1910, his work stood out for its improvements to the metal expansion process. These improvements included the introduction of sheet metal rolling to the process and changing the angle of metal mesh dividers so that the process would yield better textures for gripping.

Though over 100 years have passed since then, little has changed in the metal expansion process, aside from changes brought about by advances in technology. Such advances include automation, the invention of digital perforation, the formation of standards organizations, and the introduction of CNC machining. Though plastics have caused somewhat of a diminishment of the expanded metals market, it is still thriving. Also, thanks to people recently showing a renewed interest in older style architecture, architectural perforated metals and expanded metals have become popular once again, and the expanded metal products industry has seen an uptick in business.