Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1905-08-04
MANY USES OF TIN FOIL.
Produced in Fancifu1 Designs and
Utilized in Ornamental
Ways.

ways.
It used to be that tin foil was beaten
out, as gold leaf has always been and is
to-day; but about so years ago an Amer
ican invented machine for rolling out
tin foil that revolutionized the tin foil
industry. says the New York Sun.
The beaten out tin foil has been made
and used for many years for wrapping
up various things which it was desired
to preserve in their original condition.
The new process Of manufacture, by
materially reducing the cost of its pro-
duction, widely extended the use of tin
foil for these purposes of utility.
A little later the American who in
vented the tin foil rolling machine in
vented a machine for enclosing tin foil
by means of which any desired design
or pattern could be used, and processes
were designed for coloring the surface
of tin foil in any desired color. So that
there came to be produced tin foils that
were covered all over with delicately
embossed flowers and vines and stars
and diamonds and stripes and so on in
great variety of patterns and designs,
and other fabrics, and these prettily en-
bosSed foils were colored in many diff
ferent delicate and brilliant colors, and
made Of one color on one side and an
other color on the other.
The embossed foils were made also
with gold and with silver surfaces as
were likewise foils smooth surfaced
In short, tin foils had now come to be
thing of beauty as we'll as utility. One
who had never seen any but the plain
smooth tin foil could have but little no.
ton, in fact, of the beauty in which tin
foil is now produced.
And with tin foil produced in such
forms it came to be used not only for
purposes of utility, but for various ,.ses
in which it would add to the attractive
wrapped. The thinnest of the colored
and ornamental foils are called tissue
foils, and they are scarcely if any thick
er than tissue paper. Tin fOils are rolled
in an almost endless variety of thick
nesses, foils ranging from 1000 square
inches to $4,000 square inches being
made from one pound of metal.
Besides being used in the wrapping
of various sorts of products sold In pack
ages, tin foil is used for wrapping around
bottle necks, and over the heads of
some. 1t is used for wrapping chocolate
and cheese and candy and chewing gum
and for cigars and tobacco.
There is an old story of how tin foil
helped to make one mans fortune, that
of a man we'll known in this day and still
well remembered, a tobacconist and q
tobacco manufacturer. AS the story
runs, Gen, Scott, just then about to de-
part to take command of the United
States troops engaged in the war with
Mexico, came to this tObaccOnist and
asked if there were not some way in
which tobacco could be put up for him
SO that it would not dry out and deterio-
rate in the country to which he was 60
ing.
The tobacco man hit upon the plan of
wrapping the generals tobacco in tin
foil wrappers. This plan worked beau
tifully, and there sprung up for tobacco
wrapped in tin foil great demand,
which the tobacco man was prompt to
supply. A felicitous and attractive
name for the tobacco thus put up, q
name long familiar, helped to increase
the demand for it, and fortune fol-
lowed.
Chandeliers are wrapped up in tin
foil in fact there is special foil in long
strips made for this use. Soap is
wrapped in tin foil. Violet colored and
prettily embossed tin foil is used for
wrapping up the stems of punches OF
violets, and tin foil of various sorts is
wrapped around the stems of bouquets
of other flowers. Tin foil finds ocna-
mental uses at Christmas time.
A sort of tin foil, which, however, IS
not called foil, but cap metal, is extern
sively used in the manufacture of bottle
caps, of which there were now used
in this country alone hundreds of mil
lions annually, such caps being now
put on many bottled products to give
a handsome finish to the package, in
keeping with the general improve
ment now prevailing in putting up all
such packages. Bottle caps, which are
of ancient use, were once all spun by
hand; and in fact the finest and heav-
lest bottle caps are still made in the
same manner, but the very great ma
jority of the enormously greater num-
Der of bottle caps now used are ma
chine made