How do I check my hand pallet wrap thickness?
Being able to measure your hand pallet wrap thickness is an important part of monitoring your supplier performance and quality. In this blog we will discuss the three ways you can easily measure you hand pallet wrap thickness.
Micrometre
A micrometre is a tool specifically designed for measuring the thickness of materials. It is very simple to use, and they can be easily purchased online. However, there is a few downsides to measuring your hand pallet wrap thickness using a micrometre.
- A micrometre only gives you a spot measurement of the film thickness rather than the average across the whole width. However, this can help you to identify if there are any serious inconsistencies in thickness across the width (remember that most hand pallet wrap has a reinforced edge so expect the film to have a thicker ban at each edge).
- They are only really accurate at measuring materials over 15 microns thick. Most modern hand pallet wrap is much thinner than this at around 5-8 microns.
Weight Based Estimation
An accurate estimation of a films thickness can be made by following these steps:
- Unwind 3m of wrap (evenly and with no tension), carefully maintaining the full width.
- Measure the width at 4 intervals and record the measurements.
- Calculate the mean of the 4 measurements.
- Weigh the sample of film and record the weight.
- Carefully unwind and cut off a further 3m of wrap. Weigh the film and record the weight.
- Repeat step 5 once more.
- Now weigh the rest of the roll and record the weight.
- Weigh an empty cardboard core and record the weight. You can either cut off the remaining film or find an already empty core in your warehouse.
- Add up the results of steps 4,5 and 6 then divide by 9.
- Divide the answer by step 3.
- Divide step 10 by 919.
- The answer is an estimation of the average thickness in microns.
This is a great way to monitor the thickness of your hand pallet wrap but it can be time consuming.
Quick Hack
Because we know the density of pallet wrap (LLDPE), we can work out the exact length at which the weight in grams is equal to the thickness in microns. This method is often used by our packaging technologist on site as it is quick, easy and surprisingly accurate.
Below is a table of the common pallet wrap thicknesses and the sample length at which the weight equals thickness.
| Film Width | Sample Length |
| 380mm | 2864mm |
| 400mm | 2720mm |
| 500mm | 2176mm |
| 750mm | 1451mm |
| 1000mm | 1088mm |
