The Grill slats are spaced 10mm apart. To make this easy. I used a bunch of M10 x 12" long keystock to use as spacers during fabrication.
The reason I don't like expanded metal. It is to easy to bend and hard to bend back once it bends/stretches. Nearly impossible to paint properly. Hard to eliminate sharp edges.
Biggest issue is the paint problem. If you go to a trailer lot, all the rear drop gates on new trailers have rust bleeding out of where the expanded metal meets the tube. How can you get paint between the expanded and the square tube. Even the powdercoated trailers suffer from this.
I bolted the slats so that they would be replaceable and paintable on all sides. If the slats were welded. They would need to be welded all the way around on all sides or rust would creep out. That would be a lot of welding.
The reason I don't like expanded metal. It is to easy to bend and hard to bend back once it bends/stretches. Nearly impossible to paint properly. Hard to eliminate sharp edges.
Biggest issue is the paint problem. If you go to a trailer lot, all the rear drop gates on new trailers have rust bleeding out of where the expanded metal meets the tube. How can you get paint between the expanded and the square tube. Even the powdercoated trailers suffer from this.
I bolted the slats so that they would be replaceable and paintable on all sides. If the slats were welded. They would need to be welded all the way around on all sides or rust would creep out. That would be a lot of welding.