This study compared the shear bond strengths of two metallic orthodontic brackets, one with a single-mesh bracket base and the other with a double-mesh bracket base. The Transbond XT adhesive system was used to bond all brackets to the teeth. Two types of brackets were compared, ie, 20 Ovation metal bracket series, with a double-mesh base (Super-mesh) and an 81.50 gauge (0.126 inch), and 20 Victory series metal brackets that have a miniature single-mesh base. The teeth were bonded and debonded within half an hour from the initial bonding. The enamel surface was examined under 10x magnification to determine how much residual adhesive remained on the tooth. Student's t-test was used to compare the shear bond strength of the two groups. Chi-square test was used to compare the adhesive remnant index (ARI) scores for the two bracket types. The mean shear bond strength for the double-mesh brackets was 5.2 +/- 3.9 MPa and for the single-mesh brackets was 5.8 +/- 2.8 MPa. The t-test comparisons indicated that they were not significantly different from each other (P = .157). The ARI comparisons indicated that both bracket types had similar bracket failure modes and were not significantly different from each other (chi2 = 2.0, P = .5). These results indicated that single- and double-mesh bracket bases have comparable shear bond strength and bracket failure modes.