I went to the hardware store yesterday to pick up some hardware cloth for lining the bottom of a compost bin and to create a dirt sifting screen. My old screen finally gave out.

What was being sold as hardware cloth looks much different and flimsier than what's in my old dirt screen, and I'm wondering if there is another "farm grade" version of it that's what I'm used to.

The old hardware cloth in my screen is woven - that is, each wire goes under a crossed wire, then over the next. And it is so heavily galvanized that the intersections look as if they are soldered, creating sort of round-cornered square shaped void. (Photo left)

The stuff I'm seeing in the store isn't interwoven, it simply has the horizontal wires all laying on the same side of the vertical wires, and doesn't have any of that plugged up, solder-like intersection look (Photo right)

Looking on line, it seems both are being made, but I can't tell what the differences are functionally. But the new stuff doesn't look like it would be durable enough for the kind of abuse my dirt/rock screen needs to take.

Anyone hardware cloth mavens out there? And if the old style stuff really is more rugged, where to get it?