Annealed Wire

What is annealed wire?

Annealed wire is uncoated black steel wire: cold-drawn wire heated in a furnace and cooled under control (annealing) until it softens. The trade also calls it black wire, tie wire or soft wire. Annealing releases the internal stresses in the steel, leaving a wire that bends easily by hand and holds a knot without springing open. With no coating, it is matt, dark grey and carries a thin oxide film.

We stock annealed wire in 1.5 mm, 2.0 mm and 3.0 mm and sell it by the kilo. Its main use is tying reinforcement on site; beyond that, baling, packaging, basket work, internal gabion ties and any temporary fastening.

Technical Specifications

Weights are approximate figures from the density of steel; production tolerance allows small deviations.

Annealed Wire or Galvanized Wire: Where the Difference Starts

Both come from the same raw material but are built for completely different jobs. Settle the distinction once and most wrong purchases disappear.

• Annealed wire: Uncoated, black, soft. It bends by hand, takes a tight knot, and the knot stays. In return it rusts the moment it meets moisture outdoors. Chosen for workability, not service life.
• Galvanized wire: Zinc coated, bright silver grey, stiff. It springs back when bent, so a tight knot is hard to make. Outdoors, in damp and against soil, it lasts for years. Chosen for service life.

The rule is one sentence: buried in concrete or stripped out soon, annealed wire; permanently outdoors, galvanized. Annealed wire on a garden fence means ties snapping within a couple of seasons. Galvanized wire for tying reinforcement is needless cost and hard work; stiff wire will not hold the knot.

1.5 mm, 2.0 mm, 3.0 mm: Which Diameter Goes Where?

• 1.5 mm: The classic tie wire size and the standard diameter for tying rebar: fast with a tying hook, easy on the hand, most metres per kilo. Also used for packaging, bundling and light tying.
• 2.0 mm: For ties needing more holding power — heavy bars and column stirrups, formwork support ties, bale and basket ties, internal gabion cage connections. Still bends by hand, though less comfortably than 1.5 mm.
• 3.0 mm: For load-bearing ties and fabrication work: temporary fixing of heavy parts, scaffold and formwork ties, industrial connections, scrap and baling presses. Pliers are needed to bend it.

Ask which matters more, the load the tie carries or the number of ties. Many ties: go thin, it is faster and cheaper. Few ties under load: step up a diameter.

How Many Kilos Do You Need? Worked Examples

Weight per metre is the square of the diameter divided by 162. So one kilo gives about 72 metres at 1.5 mm, 40 metres at 2.0 mm, 18 metres at 3.0 mm.

Example 1 — slab reinforcement: Cutting and twisting one tie uses 30–35 cm. On a 100 m² slab, tying a share of the bar intersections gives roughly 2500 ties: 2500 × 0.35 m = 875 metres, and at 1.5 mm, 875 × 0.014 ≈ 12 kg.

Example 2 — from the reinforcement tonnage: The site rule of thumb is 10–15 kilos of tie wire per tonne of reinforcement. For an 8-tonne steel package, 80–120 kilos is a sound start. Tighter stirrup spacing and longer cut ties push the figure to the upper limit.

Example 3 — cage and basket ties: A 40-metre joint line tied every 15 cm gives about 270 ties. At 25 cm each that is 68 metres, roughly 2 kg at 2.0 mm.

Annealed wire ships in coils or on spools. If you want pieces small enough for a man to carry on his belt, say so when ordering; piece weight matters as much as total kilos.

Where Is It Used?

• Construction — tying reinforcement: The main use. It holds the steel cage together until the pour; rusting is irrelevant inside concrete, and the alkaline environment protects the steel anyway.
• Formwork and scaffold ties: Temporary fixings and support connections.
• Baling and packaging: Straw and hay bales, scrap and cardboard presses, heavy parcel ties. Here softness converts straight into labour speed.
• Gabion and basket fabrication: Internal connection and diaphragm ties in box gabion cages, and basket joints. Note: outer gabion ties that must last take galvanized wire; annealed wire is for internal and temporary ties.
• Garden and agriculture: Seasonal work such as tying seedlings, stakes and branches. Not for permanent fencing.
• Fabrication: An intermediate product on wire processing lines; items such as construction nails are likewise made from annealed wire.

Rust, Storage and Common Mistakes

Annealed wire has no coating; that is the definition of the product, not a defect. Stored badly, though, it is useless before it leaves the store:

• Leaving it in the open: A coil that catches rain rusts fast. Rusted wire breaks as it bends and will not hold a knot. Keep coils covered, dry and off the ground.
• Long spells on concrete: The lower layers of a coil left on a damp concrete floor rust.
• Permanent outdoor ties: On fencing, chain link fence and panel connections, annealed wire snaps within a couple of seasons. Those jobs take galvanized wire.
• The wrong diameter: Thick wire on many ties slows the men and raises cost; thin wire on a load-bearing tie ends in a break.
• Unrolling with no rig: A coil that cannot turn tangles on itself; a simple spinner or turning spindle saves serious time on site.

What Determines the Price of Annealed Wire?

On a product sold by the kilo the price is no fixed list but an outcome of the current steel market. The deciding items:

• The steel market: The price of wire rod and the exchange rate feed into the price per kilogram week by week. The most volatile item.
• Annealing quality: Properly annealed wire is soft and bends cleanly; under-annealed wire is stiff and breaks at the knot. That shows in production cost and price.
• Wire diameter: Even at similar prices per kilogram, thin wire gives far more metres for the same kilo; compare over metres or number of ties.
• Wound form and piece weight: Spools and small-piece coils carry extra labour and packaging.
• Quantity: Unit price falls as order weight rises; tonne quantities are priced separately.
• Shipping: The product is heavy; weight and distance set the carriage cost, and delivery is charged.

All the prices we publish include VAT. For a firm figure, give us the diameter, the kilos you need and the delivery province.

Ordering, Shipping and Delivery Terms

Our core business is selling and shipping the product. Order by telephone or through the contact form; the wire is weighed, made ready and sent from our Ostim warehouse to every province in Türkiye by courier or freight. Low-weight orders go by courier, site-scale palletised orders by freight; the route follows the quantity and is stated clearly in the quotation.

In Ankara, site surveys are free of charge, and on site-scale work we calculate the tie wire your reinforcement tonnage needs with you. Delivery is charged in every case, including deliveries within Ankara; courier or freight cost follows order weight and distance and appears as a separate line in the quotation.

Installation is not one of our standard services; our teams attend site only on perimeter projects of approximately 1,000 metres and above. On material items such as annealed wire we ship the product and give technical support by telephone on quantity and diameter.