Forming metal mesh

[jaybee]

Stainless mesh is popping up as grilles in the front valances of a lot of rice burners these days, and some other aftermarket grilles as well.  Of course in most of these cars it's flat, but what if you wanted something convex or concave?  The stuff is springy and seems like it would be difficult to form.  Suggestions?

[unklian]

Stainless is pretty tough to form.

[jaybee]

Stainless is pretty tough to form.

Won't disagree with that, thus my question.  What if it were a steel mesh suitable for painting or powder coating?

[purplepickup]

What are you making?  

This probably doesn't have anything to do with what you're talking about, but I've seen some formed grilles on new cars that look like they could be used to make neat grille inserts for track style shells.

[jaybee]

What are you making?  

Thinking about building a grille for my son's Lumina to gain some experience I can use on the '57 wagon.  Like most of the Lumina's on the road the plastic louvers have gotten old and are falling apart.  I could go this way or at one time someone on the HAMB posted a low-buck tech where they used a pickup tailgate edge guard for a grille bar.  On the '57 I think it would look good to use a stainless grill bar in the center (I don't much care for the stock setup) and satin black mesh to fill the rest of the opening.  On either car giving it a little bit of shape would help take away that "home built" look.  A Lumina grill opening would probably be best a little convex and maybe turned back at the edges, a '57 Chevy opening would work just a little concave.