Talk:Aluminium foil

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[edit] Why is it Aluminium Foil and not Aluminum Foil?

Is this some kind of conspiracy to make us all start talking like a Monty Python routine? Mtsmallwood (talk) 07:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the anon talk contribution, but that particular argument has happened often enough at the main page for aluminium, please let's not do it here... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.103.211.90 (talk) 18:29, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Different

What is different between hard tempered and soft tempered?


I am not so sure this page qualifies as a stub. It definitely has more than one paragraph, and I am not sure what more needs to be covered. If no one disagrees, I am going to remove the stub notice. b4hand 18:14, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Agreed - I stubbed it when I originally found it as a one-liner, but I think between us we have now said everything that can be said about it. I wish someone with a micrometer screw would go and measure the thickness of a sample, though - I just worked it out by measuring a roll and doing some trigonometry to work out how many layers there must be in it, and the error margin must be considerable. seglea 02:56, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the image, user:Splarka! And it finally answers my question about thickness (hey, I was only out by a factor of 2). seglea 23:50, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I had a lab project in a chemistry class in high school where we measured the thickness of different grades and brands of aluminum foil. We did this by weighing the sheets and measuring the area of one face of each of the sheets. We then used the known density of aluminum to figure the thickness. --Kalmia 07:47, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Why does it hurt when foil touches tooth fillings?

Good question. I think it's something about electrical potentials set up when two different metals come into contact, but I don't know the detail. seglea 23:50, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The many names of aluminium foil

I've changed the term alufoil in the text to 'aluminium foil'. The phrase 'alufoil' is not in common usage in all localities; for example, in Australia it is referred al-foil. The full name, Aluminium foil, on the other hand, is clear an unambiguous.

I've noted at that both these two abbreviations (alufoil and alfoil) are used when referring to aluminium foil.

[edit] Electrons emmitted by microwave?

The article states that the electrons emitted by the microwave cause an arc to jump between sharp points in the foil. Isn't that incorrect? Isn't the reason why placing foil in a microwave is dangerous the fact that an electric field forms around sharp points due to microwave photons hitting the foil which causes a spark or an arc to jump between two or more points in the foil? Adityan 00:06, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I believe the above statement is on track. From what I understand from a salesman recently, microwaving with aluminium *used* to be ok in some ovens, but is no longer. I just tried in a modern, relatively expensive microwave, and it began to arc right away. (I also own a much older microwave which has no problem -- and the instructions are explicit that metal foil *can* be used.)
This statement in the article seems, therefore, to be dangerously misleading: "The design of modern microwaves has been corrected so microwave energy cannot be reflected back into the magnetron, and aluminium packages designed for microwave heating are available [7]."
Let's forget that it's cited, since it seems possible the citation is incorect, and either get an opinion from an expert reader, or delete the sentence.
Alpha Ralpha Boulevard (talk) 04:40, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Anodization

Is anyone familiar with anodization? Anodization is the process through which gold aluminum foil and other colorrs are created. It would be nice to provide more information about the manufacturing of decorative foils, or link to other sources.

[edit] Which way up?

When cooking, I am sure that I have heard that there is a correct way up for the foil to be. i.e. is it shiny side up or down. But I can't for the life of me remember what the correct way is. Anyone know? Ed 17:07, 30 April 2006 (UTC)


It depends on what you are cooking, but it seems that the best idea would be to cook food with the shiny side down and the dull side facing up. The reason for this is that the the dull side is less shiny, so it will not reflect the light and heat away as much as the shiny side does.

I dont believe it matters Gacole 01:44, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a reference for this? I have data that shows no difference in emissivity between the bright side and matt side, but it is from a manufacturer rather than third party results. BrendanNZ 22:47, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
My source was industry, I don't have a third party reference sorry. Gacole (talk) 20:14, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Composition

Is Aluminum foil 100% pure aluminum? What is the chemical composition of standard aluminum foil that you can purchase at the supermarket such as Reynold's wrap?

99.99% aluminium foil does exist and is used in the electronics industry, but is expensive and not very strong. Most commercial aluminium foils are about 98.5-99.5% aluminium. I think Reynold's wrap would be similar to the manganese and copper alloys are used to produce higher stiffness foils used in pie plates and trays. BrendanNZ 22:47, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Different

What is different between hard tempered and soft tempered aluminium foil?

If the OP is still around, foil becomes work hardened during the cold rolling process. This increase the strength but also makes the foil less flexible and more brittle. Annealing (heating) the foil softens the aluminium agains, reducing the strength but increasing the flexibility. BeamerNZ (talk) 13:20, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Level of stickiness of the two sides

Personal anecdote.

I've noticed the matte side doesn't stick to my wings when I bake in the oven compared to the shiny side. --Capsela 21:11, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Urban Legend

There's a widely held urban legend that cooking with aluminum foil (and god forbid, smoking drugs from it) can cause leukoencephalopathy and alzheimer's disease. Is there any truth to this, and should it be covered in this article?

There is a story related to this- which may be an urbal legend in itself. It is said that in the 1930's a major manufacturer of aluminum cookware was approached by a man who planned to extort fundds from them. He said he was a professional rumor-spreader and if they dodn't pay him a large sum he's spread the rumor that the late film actor Rudolph Valention was killed by eating food cooked in an aluminium pot. The company refused to pay, and the rumor was succesfully spread. I can't vouch for any truth in this story, but the Valentino rumor WAS very widespread for decades- and considering the corrosive effects acidic foods like tomato sauce can have on uncoated aluminum cookware (common in the old days) it was easy to give it credbility. (Valentino's death was caused by peritonitis after a perforated ulcer.)Saxophobia 22:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

"God forbid, smoking drugs"? What's so bad about drugs? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lumarine (talk • contribs) 01:38, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] metacafe video link

As I understand it, the person who uploaded the video to metacafe receives money, but the copyright is most likely owned by the Discovery Channel. Is it right to help people make money from material produced by others? --CTho 04:27, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tinfoil merged into article

Why was tinfoil merged into the aluminium foil article? While related, tinfoil is certainly not a type of aluminium foil. Wondering, -- Infrogmation 21:30, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The two have been synonymous for years. It doesn't make sense to keep separate articles for the sake of a historical difference. I suppose there's an argument that the page title should be more generic (see also: aluminium can), but not for keeping separate articles. Chris Cunningham 23:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
TINfoil is made out of indium and not aluminium. If some people refer to aluminium, as tinfoil, then they are wrong, and its certainly not scientifically synonymous, but maybe in the kitchen and general household names, tinfoil has mistakenly been used. Tinfoil was used before the manufacturing of aluminium foil, and tinfoils are still in use today for specific uses. It is inaccurate to redirect the word "tinfoil" to aluminum foil. It might be worth adding "aluminium foil is sometimes mistakenly referred to as tinfoil", but redirecting tinfoil here is against wikipedia policies as tinfoil is a separate thing on its own and deserves its own article. Tinfoil does exist and it is made out of tin or indium whichever you wish to use. So please create a separate article for tinfoil and stop the redirect. Or if you want to cover aluminium foil and tinfoil at the same time, rename the article as household foils or foils, but this will be a mess. --Sina 04:38, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I got rid of the redirect. A link from Oil paint to Tin foil redirected me directly to this article, which was clearly wrong - although a few sections down I did find some info on tin foil. So I copied that into the Tin foil article. I haven't done anything to this article (Aluminium foil), although there should at least be a link back some day if the Tin foil article gets expanded. The indium foil point is interesting, I had no idea the stuff was in common (household) use. --Adx (talk) 22:56, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Healthy snack" vandalism

That's three separate IPs in the last day. Was this featured on some kids' TV show or something? If so we should semiprot until it passes. Chris Cunningham 08:32, 9 May 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Hissing foil

My wife brought me a sandwich, and it was wrapped in aluminum foil. We unwrapped the sandwiches on a plastic desk. As we ate our sandwiches, the unfolded foil started a high pitched hissing sound. As time went on, it got louder. Touching it seemed to have no effect. We could even move it. The hissing continued. My wife dumped the crumbs off, and it seemed to limit the hissing, but it did stabilize again, just weaker. Anyone else have this happen? Programmerq 01:29, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Distribution term

Aluminum foil is usually distributed as a long box with a tube covered in foil inside, so that you can pull it out and tear it on the edge of the box. Would one call this a box or a roll? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.171.35.4 (talk) 00:17, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Aluminum Thickness

Hello,

I was reading about this aluminum foil and I had to stare it this for about 20 seconds before I could make a decision that it was incorrect. Unless there is a different meaning, or dimensions... something is wrong.

The first paragraph of the article says Aluminum foil is usually 20000 mm in thickness. That's 20 cm. Can someone please fix this and if not, tell me what I have misinterpreted, and fix that so that it's not ambiguous.

Thank you, GoldenGoose100 19:37, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your potential replies, but I found the problem. Some bored spammer, whose I.P. address is recorded, took the 0.02 mm and changed it to 20,000 mm. So I fixed it back.
This I.P. address should be banned from Wikipedia. I've been a member for a week or so and already have found and fixed 3 spam errors. Terrible, terrible, terrible.
GoldenGoose100 19:45, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I assume this thickness relates to household aluminium foil from a supermarket? A range of aluminium foil thicknesses are used in other industries, for example food packaging and insulation. Are these topics beyond the scope of this article? BrendanNZ 22:47, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Manufacture

Does this need a manufacturing section, covereing rolling, tempering and annealing? BrendanNZ 22:51, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Herringbone pattern

hmm... Does the herringbone pattern mentioned as a undesirable effect in the Manufacture section refer to Opus spicatum, which is found on the Herringbone disambig page? If so, the word herringbone in the article should be linked thus. Otherwise, please find out or realize which pattern they mean, and link appropriately the word herringbone. Thank you ~ GoldenGoose100 (talk) 23:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC)