3. Galvanizing wires

Wire galvanizing is an intermediate process between hot-dip galvanizing and sheet galvanizing. In fact, it is a continuous process that may include a heat treatment in a pass-through furnace or a lead bath at 500°C (patenting), depending on the wire's characteristics, followed by a pickling-fluxing treatment before entry into the zinc bath (generally pure). Excess zinc is wiped off as it exits the bath, either by passing through a gravel box where H ₂ S burns, or by gas-jet dewatering.

The wires are processed in layers, i.e. around twenty bobbins are unwound and processed in parallel.

Wires are either bright (galvanized in the cold-drawn state) or annealed (galvanized after in-line annealing).

For certain applications, the wires are rewired after galvanizing, which requires...