in today’s video we’re taking really
thin sheets of aluminum and see if we
can twist them into something stronger
a metal rope
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
on YouTube Skylar Parks asked if we can
make a rope using aluminum foil
Skylar that’s an interesting question as
most people know aluminum foil is not
terribly strong it’s made of metal but
it’s so thin that it shreds apart easily
this is definitely not something you
would think of as holding any support
even when we take sort of a bunch of it
at once
it’s pretty easy to bust right through
it so can we take this super thin flimsy
material and turn it into something
stronger a cable or rope that we can
actually pull against with some strength
here’s the basic idea in the past we’ve
used uncommon materials to make rope
today we’re gonna take something really
light and thin and see if we can get the
same result we’ve made rope out of some
uncommon or weak materials in the past
we’ve used soda bottles cut into strands
we’ve used pretty weak string to make a
fairly strong rope we’ve used coconut
fibres that we’re able to twist together
into long continuous pieces all of those
were able to take a fair amount of
strength our rope made out of paper
towel was able to hold my weight and
pull a car so we know that we can take
something weaker and bind it together
into something stronger today we want to
see if we can make that work with
aluminum foil the aluminum does present
a few challenges that other materials
we’ve used don’t have most of the time
when we’ve tried to make any sort of
rope it involves taking long strips or
pieces of the material and twisting it
together however with the foil sometimes
we run into a problem that if we keep
twisting it rather than getting stronger
it becomes brittle and just breaks right
apart I believe this is mostly because
rather than being strands or fibers that
are really strong pulled one direction
the foil is sort of uniformly weak in
every direction easy that direction easy
that direction easy at an angle it just
rips really easily so it’s not the same
as others materials we’ve used even
paper towels which aren’t very strong on
their own we are able to twist into
something that made a pretty strong rope
because it is a fibrous material and
twisting it together helped it bind even
stronger with the foil it’s a different
beast before we get started with the
whole rope we at least want to see if we
can have a proof of concept can we take
one sheet of foil and make it stronger
two sheets of foil about the same size
now we want to attach one of these
sheets of foil under a scale to see how
hard we can pull on it before it breaks
to try and make sure that we’re pulling
evenly with the whole width of the foil
I’m going to take a dowel and I’m gonna
tape it to either side that should make
it so that when pressure is being put on
one spot it’s transferred to the whole
sheet at the same time let’s test this
out now I’m gonna hold on to the dowel
on this side I’m going to pull and tell
something breaks and hopefully we’re
using the whole strength of the foil
here I think I saw that get 228 pounds
which is surprising I really didn’t
think we were gonna be able to get that
much force out of one sheet of foil hard
to know exactly where it did fail but we
can see that it did tear along this
whole tape edge so I imagine it gave out
in one spot first and then quickly
spread to the sides the question now is
if we take this sheet of foil and we
modify it maybe by rolling it up is it
going to get stronger or weaker than the
whole sheet of foil spread out wide I’m
gonna start by wrapping the piece of
foil around this wooden dowel to make it
into a nice tube shape and then I’ll
twist it from there I’m gonna take this
end fit it into the Chuck of a drill
hold on to the other end of this let it
wow that’s a lot shorter okay now this
looks more like a rope obviously this is
more rope shape than the sheet of foil
let’s see what strength we can get off
of this thing I’ve got the foil attached
at both sides and hopefully we’ll get
all of the strength being put into the
foil and not too much into the tape and
stuff like that I think it’s gonna work
we may have to adjust it doesn’t now one
thing I noticed just as I was putting on
here and testing if I had any tension at
all it started spinning our foil is
coiled up really tightly and when I
start putting weight on it it starts
onion coiling just a little bit let’s
see what happens I might end up
stretching this foil back out as it
twists of it boom that gave out early
the scale got up to nine pounds I took
some pressure off to try and hold the
scale so the camera could see it better
and then it seemed to break at about
seven pounds when I was pulling on them
again this highlights another worried
that I had about the foil if you’ve ever
held a little piece of thin metal like a
paperclip and you bend it back and forth
you may notice that it starts to get
brittle it loses its ductility and you
can’t bend it as easily anymore and then
when you put pressure on that twisted
spot it just wants to break because
you’ve already made the metal a little
bit weaker our first test shows that a
stretched out piece of foil laid out
flat is actually holding more weight
than it twists it up piece of foil a
flat piece of foil may in theory be able
to hold more weight but it’s
horrendously impractical you never want
to try and pull anything with a sheet of
foil so I think we can still turn our
twisted aluminum foil in something that
can still take quite a bit of pull
there’s a few different things I want to
try the first is sort of making the foil
into a rope a little bit more the same
way other ropes are made that’s with
thin strips twisted together and then
twisting those thin pieces together the
second is I want to try using our rope
machine you’ve probably seen us use this
before you put some strands in you
attach drill onto the back spin it it
twists everything up and coils them
together will this machine work with
foil that twisting effect that makes it
brittle and break is something we’ve
already seen happen by hand it could be
even worse in the machine but even with
that I still think we’ll be able to
twist pieces together into a strong rope
whether we use this or not to cut nice
long strips out of the sheet of foil
I’m going to fold it over a few times so
I don’t have to cut in the whole length
over and over this way I’ll be able to
cut much shorter lengths but still get
the strip’s running through the whole
length of the sheet before I cut it
though there is one other thing we have
to do and that’s to put a layer paper
towel in between foil if you try and cut
foil fold it over without anything in
between it tends to bind it to itself so
here I’ve got a piece just folding it a
couple of times in half that’s four
layers thick right there
now if I cut through I have this strip
of foil but the edges have sort of
curled over each other and they don’t
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
I don’t think the drill is the way to do
this we’ve got a much more string shaped
piece of foil maybe now it will twist
twisted better than before but I think
we’re actually getting a better result
just by rolling it in our hands so it’s
not actually twisted up but it is still
rolled up you now have three decently
long fairly round strands of the
aluminum and the goal is to see if we
can twist these together into a stronger
cord
we’ve now got a cable made from three
strands of aluminum foil twisted
together attached to the scale pull test
Oh getting a lot of spinning and a very
low stress test on that one oh I think
it just barely maxed out at about six
pounds what do you think are we gonna
get any better luck using our rope
machine
here goes oh well we we got three or
four inches of our rope and then our
individual strands just snapped that’s
not a lot of rope but it’s a little bit
so we can try and take this and put it
on the scale and see what it’s measuring
at hey our tape gave out let’s reinforce
there is we got 256 pounds that is
something that is definitely a higher
result than the 28 pounds of course we
had with the plain flat sheet and this
is still one sheet of foil just cut into
thirds and then rolled up so we finally
managed to get a little better than the
plain sheet however we did use a rote
machine to do this and then all of our
cables broke so the Rope machine itself
is not a very effective way to keep
making this rope I want to scale that up
we’re just gonna use a lot of aluminum
foil we’re gonna use whole sheets this
time and I think I’m gonna try and do
three wrap together and then three of
those wrap together so nine total sheets
I lost about two feet in length doing
that let’s do it eight more times we’ve
got nine cords laid out now so we’re
gonna start twisting them together we’re
gonna twist three together three
together through together and then we’re
gonna twist all of those together and
make ourselves sort of a big monster
cable see how it works
[Music]
now we’ve got three cables and we need
to twist them all together into one
giant cable it’s turned into one day old
rope
[Music]
hahaha giant foil rope that’s great
question is does it have any strengths
at all about three feet four inches long
each sheet of foil before we started was
about six maybe six and a half feet long
so we’ve lost almost 50% of our foil
length and turning it into this road we
got to see how much weight this can take
all right cable rope foil whatever you
are haha it holds it’s not the most
comfortable rope to hold on to it does
hold its shape better than most today
we’ve got the truck which has got like
four layers of paracord attached to a
foil rope i unwound the rope just a
little bit and I sort of braided the
paracord in there and then I’ve got a
lot of layers of tape after braiding the
Rope back around it same thing on the
other side attached to our scale this is
hooked onto the tow hook of a car and so
now we’re just gonna test we’re gonna
have Mark drive away very slowly we’re
gonna see how our foil rope holds up see
how many pounds of pressure takes before
broken that was a very relaxed breakers
just like yeah gone all right there we
go our rope broke it was not a very
energetic breaking I thought that maybe
it were just popping catastrophic ly
fail at once but really just was pulling
and pulling and then just was like yeah
I’m out and just let go and everything
kind of fell down but I’m quite sure I
saw it at over 200 pounds I think I saw
it at about 200 15 or 25 something like
that overall though that’s definitely a
rope that was doing something Schuyler
parks thank you for your suggestion guys
if you’ve got something you want to see
us try it let us know down in the
comments below guys that’s not all we’ve
always got more for you see that box up
at the top is gonna take you to our last
video you should go check that out the
other box is gonna show you what YouTube
things you should be watching next we
picked his bomb here in the middle
you’ll be subscribed to the channel so
you never miss out on a video don’t
forget to ring that Bell and we’ll see you in the next one talk to you then
thin sheets of aluminum and see if we
can twist them into something stronger
a metal rope
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
on YouTube Skylar Parks asked if we can
make a rope using aluminum foil
Skylar that’s an interesting question as
most people know aluminum foil is not
terribly strong it’s made of metal but
it’s so thin that it shreds apart easily
this is definitely not something you
would think of as holding any support
even when we take sort of a bunch of it
at once
it’s pretty easy to bust right through
it so can we take this super thin flimsy
material and turn it into something
stronger a cable or rope that we can
actually pull against with some strength
here’s the basic idea in the past we’ve
used uncommon materials to make rope
today we’re gonna take something really
light and thin and see if we can get the
same result we’ve made rope out of some
uncommon or weak materials in the past
we’ve used soda bottles cut into strands
we’ve used pretty weak string to make a
fairly strong rope we’ve used coconut
fibres that we’re able to twist together
into long continuous pieces all of those
were able to take a fair amount of
strength our rope made out of paper
towel was able to hold my weight and
pull a car so we know that we can take
something weaker and bind it together
into something stronger today we want to
see if we can make that work with
aluminum foil the aluminum does present
a few challenges that other materials
we’ve used don’t have most of the time
when we’ve tried to make any sort of
rope it involves taking long strips or
pieces of the material and twisting it
together however with the foil sometimes
we run into a problem that if we keep
twisting it rather than getting stronger
it becomes brittle and just breaks right
apart I believe this is mostly because
rather than being strands or fibers that
are really strong pulled one direction
the foil is sort of uniformly weak in
every direction easy that direction easy
that direction easy at an angle it just
rips really easily so it’s not the same
as others materials we’ve used even
paper towels which aren’t very strong on
their own we are able to twist into
something that made a pretty strong rope
because it is a fibrous material and
twisting it together helped it bind even
stronger with the foil it’s a different
beast before we get started with the
whole rope we at least want to see if we
can have a proof of concept can we take
one sheet of foil and make it stronger
two sheets of foil about the same size
now we want to attach one of these
sheets of foil under a scale to see how
hard we can pull on it before it breaks
to try and make sure that we’re pulling
evenly with the whole width of the foil
I’m going to take a dowel and I’m gonna
tape it to either side that should make
it so that when pressure is being put on
one spot it’s transferred to the whole
sheet at the same time let’s test this
out now I’m gonna hold on to the dowel
on this side I’m going to pull and tell
something breaks and hopefully we’re
using the whole strength of the foil
here I think I saw that get 228 pounds
which is surprising I really didn’t
think we were gonna be able to get that
much force out of one sheet of foil hard
to know exactly where it did fail but we
can see that it did tear along this
whole tape edge so I imagine it gave out
in one spot first and then quickly
spread to the sides the question now is
if we take this sheet of foil and we
modify it maybe by rolling it up is it
going to get stronger or weaker than the
whole sheet of foil spread out wide I’m
gonna start by wrapping the piece of
foil around this wooden dowel to make it
into a nice tube shape and then I’ll
twist it from there I’m gonna take this
end fit it into the Chuck of a drill
hold on to the other end of this let it
wow that’s a lot shorter okay now this
looks more like a rope obviously this is
more rope shape than the sheet of foil
let’s see what strength we can get off
of this thing I’ve got the foil attached
at both sides and hopefully we’ll get
all of the strength being put into the
foil and not too much into the tape and
stuff like that I think it’s gonna work
we may have to adjust it doesn’t now one
thing I noticed just as I was putting on
here and testing if I had any tension at
all it started spinning our foil is
coiled up really tightly and when I
start putting weight on it it starts
onion coiling just a little bit let’s
see what happens I might end up
stretching this foil back out as it
twists of it boom that gave out early
the scale got up to nine pounds I took
some pressure off to try and hold the
scale so the camera could see it better
and then it seemed to break at about
seven pounds when I was pulling on them
again this highlights another worried
that I had about the foil if you’ve ever
held a little piece of thin metal like a
paperclip and you bend it back and forth
you may notice that it starts to get
brittle it loses its ductility and you
can’t bend it as easily anymore and then
when you put pressure on that twisted
spot it just wants to break because
you’ve already made the metal a little
bit weaker our first test shows that a
stretched out piece of foil laid out
flat is actually holding more weight
than it twists it up piece of foil a
flat piece of foil may in theory be able
to hold more weight but it’s
horrendously impractical you never want
to try and pull anything with a sheet of
foil so I think we can still turn our
twisted aluminum foil in something that
can still take quite a bit of pull
there’s a few different things I want to
try the first is sort of making the foil
into a rope a little bit more the same
way other ropes are made that’s with
thin strips twisted together and then
twisting those thin pieces together the
second is I want to try using our rope
machine you’ve probably seen us use this
before you put some strands in you
attach drill onto the back spin it it
twists everything up and coils them
together will this machine work with
foil that twisting effect that makes it
brittle and break is something we’ve
already seen happen by hand it could be
even worse in the machine but even with
that I still think we’ll be able to
twist pieces together into a strong rope
whether we use this or not to cut nice
long strips out of the sheet of foil
I’m going to fold it over a few times so
I don’t have to cut in the whole length
over and over this way I’ll be able to
cut much shorter lengths but still get
the strip’s running through the whole
length of the sheet before I cut it
though there is one other thing we have
to do and that’s to put a layer paper
towel in between foil if you try and cut
foil fold it over without anything in
between it tends to bind it to itself so
here I’ve got a piece just folding it a
couple of times in half that’s four
layers thick right there
now if I cut through I have this strip
of foil but the edges have sort of
curled over each other and they don’t
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
I don’t think the drill is the way to do
this we’ve got a much more string shaped
piece of foil maybe now it will twist
twisted better than before but I think
we’re actually getting a better result
just by rolling it in our hands so it’s
not actually twisted up but it is still
rolled up you now have three decently
long fairly round strands of the
aluminum and the goal is to see if we
can twist these together into a stronger
cord
we’ve now got a cable made from three
strands of aluminum foil twisted
together attached to the scale pull test
Oh getting a lot of spinning and a very
low stress test on that one oh I think
it just barely maxed out at about six
pounds what do you think are we gonna
get any better luck using our rope
machine
here goes oh well we we got three or
four inches of our rope and then our
individual strands just snapped that’s
not a lot of rope but it’s a little bit
so we can try and take this and put it
on the scale and see what it’s measuring
at hey our tape gave out let’s reinforce
there is we got 256 pounds that is
something that is definitely a higher
result than the 28 pounds of course we
had with the plain flat sheet and this
is still one sheet of foil just cut into
thirds and then rolled up so we finally
managed to get a little better than the
plain sheet however we did use a rote
machine to do this and then all of our
cables broke so the Rope machine itself
is not a very effective way to keep
making this rope I want to scale that up
we’re just gonna use a lot of aluminum
foil we’re gonna use whole sheets this
time and I think I’m gonna try and do
three wrap together and then three of
those wrap together so nine total sheets
I lost about two feet in length doing
that let’s do it eight more times we’ve
got nine cords laid out now so we’re
gonna start twisting them together we’re
gonna twist three together three
together through together and then we’re
gonna twist all of those together and
make ourselves sort of a big monster
cable see how it works
[Music]
now we’ve got three cables and we need
to twist them all together into one
giant cable it’s turned into one day old
rope
[Music]
hahaha giant foil rope that’s great
question is does it have any strengths
at all about three feet four inches long
each sheet of foil before we started was
about six maybe six and a half feet long
so we’ve lost almost 50% of our foil
length and turning it into this road we
got to see how much weight this can take
all right cable rope foil whatever you
are haha it holds it’s not the most
comfortable rope to hold on to it does
hold its shape better than most today
we’ve got the truck which has got like
four layers of paracord attached to a
foil rope i unwound the rope just a
little bit and I sort of braided the
paracord in there and then I’ve got a
lot of layers of tape after braiding the
Rope back around it same thing on the
other side attached to our scale this is
hooked onto the tow hook of a car and so
now we’re just gonna test we’re gonna
have Mark drive away very slowly we’re
gonna see how our foil rope holds up see
how many pounds of pressure takes before
broken that was a very relaxed breakers
just like yeah gone all right there we
go our rope broke it was not a very
energetic breaking I thought that maybe
it were just popping catastrophic ly
fail at once but really just was pulling
and pulling and then just was like yeah
I’m out and just let go and everything
kind of fell down but I’m quite sure I
saw it at over 200 pounds I think I saw
it at about 200 15 or 25 something like
that overall though that’s definitely a
rope that was doing something Schuyler
parks thank you for your suggestion guys
if you’ve got something you want to see
us try it let us know down in the
comments below guys that’s not all we’ve
always got more for you see that box up
at the top is gonna take you to our last
video you should go check that out the
other box is gonna show you what YouTube
things you should be watching next we
picked his bomb here in the middle
you’ll be subscribed to the channel so
you never miss out on a video don’t
forget to ring that Bell and we’ll see you in the next one talk to you then
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