Aluminium foil strength

Hi, I so agree, I too, am sick of foil just not doing the job anymore, non of it is worth the money you pay for it. I am slowly changing my cookware so I don’t have to worry about foil anymore.

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Quite agree. I usually buy Multiplex whatever but tried an advertised own brand claiming to be stronger, it was but cut my finger quite badly on edge using it so back to usual.

I find that big 2 home brands are both very thin & tear unevenly etc. simply doesn’t pay to go for cheapness as lose quality as always.

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We buy foil in France and it’s a totally different product, strong and easy to use. I would bring a roll back except it’s very heavy compared to the Australian efforts.

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Actually the same can be said for toilet paper there is more air than paper in some rolls!

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Aside from the role of clues in guessing the author’s intent consider also consequences of getting it wrong. There are two ways this happens.

If its a joke and I guess wrong you may be disappointed that I didn’t recognise your wit. Possibly annoying but not the end of the world. But look at the reverse.

I take it as a joke and laugh along. I pile more on top of the target of mockery. I expect us to guffaw along for a few more exchanges.

Except that I have made the opposite error and you are serious! I have just ridiculed your favourite wisdom. I have just identified your favourite child as a monkey. How do you feel now?

I would say the opposite is the case. How many people go shopping without their trusty mobile phone? Of course, I normally do the conversions and other calculations in my head, and have a notepad on stand-by.

The problem with foil is not simply its ‘core strength’, but its willingness to tear. I am incapable of tearing foil in a straight line - it refuses to obey the serrated edge across which I am trying to pull it. I have tried numerous means of tearing it, but am continually foiled!

So in my opinion the problem is not one of ‘which foil to buy’ but one of needing a new invention. We need the people who created graphene to turn their attention away from carbon and towards aluminium. I want a foil that can be cut using a sharp edge, but not easily pierced. I want a foil that has edge strength. In short, I want Aluminium nano-foil.

I also want a new duck. One that won’t try to bite.

For those who are not sure whether to talk about ‘aluminum’ or ‘aluminium’, the Royal Society of Chemistry refers to the thirteenth element in this periodic table as aluminium with two of the letter ‘i’. According to this article, its namer (it was apparently discovered by Hans Christian Ørsted) eventually decided to call it aluminium, after five years of calling it first alumium and aluminum. Noah Webster wrote the first US dictionary, and was decidedly anti-British in his spelling; nevertheless, apparently US scientists stuck with the British spelling for quite some time. Interestingly, this article indicates that US scientists continue to use the ‘international’ spelling - aluminium - while aluminum is only referred to by the public and the media.

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I see people talking on their phones, probably about what they need to buy, but none that are obviously using their calculator app. :wink:

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The fact that they are not using the app is irrelevant to your original statement that:

In fact, I have no idea what many shoppers are doing with their phones; how many are playing games as they shop, or using apps to tell them what they’re supposed to be buying, or surreptitiously following me and taking photographs without my explicit consent :open_mouth:. You just can’t trust the modern shopper.

As a side note, I was looking at a recent issue of a well-known Australian consumer-focused magazine. In its review of ‘Coffee Pods’ (which I’m fairly sure are simply UFOs that smuggle themselves into the homes of feckless consumers in the guise of dispensing coffee), this magazine highlighted on page 81 that:

Aluminium requires nine times more energy to manufacture than steel

That is enormous, and a very good reason to move away from aluminium foil towards a cheaper option (maybe iron foil, as even steel is very expensive to manufacture). Alternatively, perhaps those carbon nanotubes can be a direct replacement for aluminium foil?

Woah - you dissin’ my family? He’s very well-mannered, as monkeys go (in fact, we prefer ‘simian’ if you don’t mind - that’s how he ended up as Simon). And don’t you dare get started on all the tropes such as ‘monkey see, monkey do’ or the ‘three monkeys’!

  • Note to readers. The last paragraph of this post is in jest and must be taken as such. (I can say ‘must’, can’t I? I want this forum to feel more musty :wink:; a little lived-in.)

  • Second note to readers. I do not have the power to coerce you. Please read the word ‘must’ in the previous note as ‘should’, if you would be so kind. If you would not be so kind, please continue to read it as ‘must’ :thinking:.

  • Third note to readers. Please ignore most of the contents of the last two notes to readers, and focus on the fact that the previous paragraph was intended as jest. No monkeys were hurt in the performance of this attempt at humour.

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Why do you assume that a new invention is required? Why is the tear strength not a direct consequence of the thickness?

I think your inability to make it tear along the serrated cutting edge is personal, most people can make that work most of the time. :grin: The usual problem is it tears when you don’t want it to.

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It’s when those people are standing in the middle of the aisle mindlessly yammering away, sometimes on subjects completely unrelated to their current trip to the supermarket, that I seriously consider using my mobile phone to lock their trolley wheel - yes, it works … no, I haven’t done it … yet …

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Unfortunately I do not have enough of a materials physics background to fully answer this question, but I suggest that aluminium foil self-evidently is not a great solution to the problem it was invented to solve. There are materials that tear along specific lines, and materials that do not - foil does not. It does tear in unanticipated locations, and unless you want foil that is half a cm thick I don’t know how you propose to resolve the problems mentioned not just by me but by other commentators.

That tears it! I’m being torn by these negative remarks, tears welling in my eyes as my wife watches it tearing me up! Like tears in rain, so are the days of my life. ( :wink:)

@draughtrider, I think you have made a mistake in your proposal. Why damage your mobile phone when the other customer’s is so readily available? (Heads work even better.) (So I’ve heard.)

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I wouldn’t dream of damaging my mobile phone, I’d just play THE SONG that locks the wheel :wink:

Works on the Woolies trolleys here - need to hold the phone right next to the wheel. There is an unlock song as well …

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Photos, or it didn’t happen. And if you need to hold the phone right next to the wheel, you are in awful danger from sweaty-knee-to-eye injuries, kid-height injuries, blindness-simulating shopper syndrome and other terrifying causes of everyday accidents in supermarkets.

At least use a selfie stick! (Wait - finally, a reason to invest in one?)

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This probably belongs in my trolley thread - but I have not inflicted this on anyone else so far, but I have tested ‘the song’ on my own trolley and it works fine. The Woolies I use has an outside carpark as well, which is not considered part of the shopping centre for some reason, probably because putting the magic trolley fence around it would have been too expensive - long boundary. It’s only another 10-30 metres from the double-storey car park so I just unlock it at the pinch point and keep going. When unloaded into the car, I then return it to the trolley corral - which requires unlocking it at the pinch point again.

I imagine a similar arrangement with a huge inductive loop and a 20 megawatt audio amp - such that one could lock every trolley in a 5 kilometre radius … oh, I mean unlock … :wink:

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Aluminium is one that does not. Like other metals, it doesn’t have any structure which would form be a tear line. In theory, foil should be the same thickness with the whole of the foil having the same strength. This potentially does change if the foil is damaged/creased though. It may tear along creases/or lines of damage.

Materials like paper will tear more or less along at line following the direction the paper fibres are laid…but tearing at perpendicukar along a line is difficult. Paper will also tear along a folded line perpendicular to fibre direction whereby the paper fibres are weaked by the fold. Note: some paper is more of a random matrix of fibres which can also be difficult to tear without a fold line.

It is possible that aluminium would follw a fold line as it could weaken the foil or make it slightly thinner at the fold, becoming the point/line of tear when energy is applied…I must try this to see if it will tear along a fold line.

Not having natural tear lines is why aluminium foil comes packaged with a serated edge to cut along.

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Sorry, which state are you in? I’m just wondering how far away I need to be…

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… as long as my foil hat doesn’t tear, you’ll be fine :wink: I use a couple of layers, it’s made according to Australian Standards, so what could go wrong? (note: any Choice test of foil needs to include the efficacy of foil hats …)

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I hope you’re using tinfoil there rather than aluminium. You need to make use of the unique properties of tin for that hat, or they’ll find… I mean, you’ll be… er… it won’t work as intended!

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The only foil that is actually strong and you can feel the difference between this and other foils is Costco Kirkland Reynolds foil. IT IS REALLY THICK AND STRONG. NO B.S. advertising just a fantastic product!

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I have a need for particularly strong foil so I tried Reynolds Kirkland (RK624) from Costco . It is labelled “Food service premium quality heavy duty”. Some online reports say it is 80 microns thick but I don’t know where that comes from or if it refers to an overseas product or the same one available locally.

I also tried Matador “Heavy duty” available from Bunnings which is the only one I have seen online where the maker advertises the thickness, it is said to be 35 microns.

For comparison I have tried Multix traditional “Strong and reliable” which is from Woolies.

This is how they turned out:

Reynolds: 25 microns thick, feels heavier and tears less easily than standard
Multix : 16 microns thick, standard, tears easily.
Matador: 39 microns thick, feels much heavier and stronger than the other two. I have no idea why it measures thicker than advertised but I’ll take it as it is.

The measurements were taken with a recently calibrated micrometer that is probably accurate to ± 2 microns. I took several measurements of each and got consistent results. I am not in a position to measure strength but I think it very likely it will depend directly on thickness. If Choice were to do a study we would all have better information.

If anybody has tried foil that is heavier than Matador I would love to know about it.

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