Peeling The Paper Off The Back

Some foil wrappers have a paper backing. My guess for why this is would be for strength, ease of getting at the contents, or to prevent interaction between the aluminum and the contents. Some candies that come with these wrappers are York peppermint patties, some brands of stick gum, and Andes mints.

Anyway, that paper is both a good thing and a bad thing. The bad part is that it adds some extra work before the foil can be used. The good part is that removal of the paper usually leaves some of the adhesive which was holding it on. That adhesive makes that foil useful as a top layer, holding any other foil which is not so endowed onto the ball. When the ball is small, large pieces of foil will stay on by wrapping around it, but as it grows, this "glue coat" of peeled foil becomes more important.

As with other aspects of the ball project, I have developed a method of peeling foil. I started out trying to peel it at the edge, but that only works for a small portion of available foil. Now, I have a trick.

Moisten the paper near the edge. You don't need a terribly large area, just 2-4 square cm should do. Some papers need more moisture than others. Peppermint pattie wrappers don't need much at all, but gum wrappers typically need a bit more to loosen the fibers.
Scrape the moistened paper so that there is a clear path from some part of that area, to the edge.
In a similar fashion, scrape up one side of the paper from the clear part.
Pull the resulting tab up and around the square. The desired result is to remove the paper in one piece. Sometimes, the foil will tear. You can simply continue the process, pulling the paper from the foil or vice versa.


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