This made me wonder about a 3D printer alternative that builds things by folding a thin sheet of metal into arbitrary shapes instead of extruding filament.
Aluminum foil (2021)
11–20 of 148 posts
Re: Aluminum foil (2021)
#12Another thing not mentioned on there about aluminium foil is how clean it is. We work with a laminar flow hood and pull a fresh layer of foil anytime we are working to create a clean base to work on. I can guarantee you that if you run a swab over a fresh sheet of foil and smear it onto sterile nutrient agar that it won't grow anything - that said, we use costco foil which is thicker gauge and not the budget thinner stuff which is definitely inferior.
Re: Aluminum foil (2021)
#13This is pretty much just rambling about how amazing aluminium foil is because it's so thin and that might enable all sorts of wonderful imaginary applications. Very HN. It's aluminium foil.
You sound like someone who hasn't explored the upper limits of what aluminum foil can solve!
Has a kid, my mom used to pack my lunch in aluminium foil and everyday was a challenge of trying to make the perfect aluminium ball and throw it in the trashcan[1] on the first try!
1. Recycling was a vague concept in the 80s & 90s
Re: Aluminum foil (2021)
#14This is pretty much just rambling about how amazing aluminium foil is because it's so thin and that might enable all sorts of wonderful imaginary applications. Very HN. It's aluminium foil.
What's really thin is the oxide layer on the surface
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anodizing
When exposed to air at room temperature, or any other gas containing oxygen, pure aluminium self-passivates by forming a surface layer of amorphous aluminium oxide 2 to 3 nm thick,[4] which provides very effective protection against corrosion. Aluminium alloys typically form a thicker oxide layer, 5–15 nm thick, but tend to be more susceptible to corrosion.
Re: Aluminum foil (2021)
#15Photographers and cinematographers are like: ohhh let me sit you down and tell you all about my love of blackwrap.
Aluminium foil is amazing stuff. Aluminium foil adhesive tape, in particular, is incredibly useful.
Being a multi-domain kind of geek the random tapes section of my tool drawers also contains mylar tape and fashion tape (or "tit tape" as a friend calls it) but the aluminium foil tape has proved to have many useful applications.
Re: Aluminum foil (2021)
#16>Alternatively, though, it might be possible to stiffen the foil by making the equivalent of corrugated cardboard out of it, maybe using aqueous boric acid (US$1.70/kg according to Potential local sources and prices of refractory materials) or borax as the glue. The surface tension of water is ample to hold aluminum foil in place until the water dries.
Hello Amazon? Billion dollar idea here. This needs more attention. You could have fully recyclable aluminum boxes instead of cardboard. Imagine your box supply chain literally being a circle.
Re: Aluminum foil (2021)
#17I just skimmed and read parts but I really enjoyed reading this. It's like my own handwritten notes which are just stray thoughts about a subject. Maybe I should publish more of those and I love the idea of just musing about a single thing, like Aluminum Foil (though it's very interesting stuff).
Re: Aluminum foil (2021)
#18This is pretty much just rambling about how amazing aluminium foil is because it's so thin and that might enable all sorts of wonderful imaginary applications. Very HN. It's aluminium foil.
You sound like someone who hasn't explored the upper limits of what aluminum foil can solve!
Read this guy's ramblings and give me one cool application that he has found. Lots of "maybe it could do this!" and "it can do !"
Re: Aluminum foil (2021)
#19This made me wonder about a 3D printer alternative that builds things by folding a thin sheet of metal into arbitrary shapes instead of extruding filament.
I made an artwork in 2013-ish, where I attached an aluminum foil to a good DC motor. I mounted it from the ceiling with 2 stepper motors to control height and one orthogonal axis. The motor would unwind the foil by accelerating quickly in either direction (CW/CCW). By changing directions it would also create folds and stabilize the emerging shape: https://imgur.com/a/gaRKGtQ
I always imagined an additional stepper motor to cover an area like a delta 3D printer and liked to think about the difficulty in creating the 3D software, and the need to find a solution to simulate the unwinding-into-shape through some physical model.
EDIT: unwinding GIF here: https://imgur.com/a/VP3gEiv
Re: Aluminum foil (2021)
#20Worth noting that aluminum is the most abundant metal of the Moon’s highland geography, thus excellent for bootstrapping beyond Earth.