The first time I used freezer paper in my shop was to make a template for a curved back on a bench. In fact, transfer paper intended for the inkjet printer is essentially freezer paper cut into printer-size sheets. It can be used to make iron-on transfers. Crafters and quilters use it for making stencils and patterns. The uncoated side is easy to write on and great for labeling contents.įreezer paper has also found dozens of other uses. Similar to butcher paper, freezer paper resists liquids and won't stick to a product frozen within its folds. The commonly available freezer paper we buy is thicker and heavier than waxed paper and the coating is polyethylene, not paraffin. Like waxed paper, freezer paper is coated, but only on one side. But lately I have been using freezer paper instead. We wipe iron and steel surfaces with it to impart a little protective wax (err, paraffin) or to make things slick. In the workshop we use it under glue-ups to protect our work surface and to make cleanup easier. Like many other common and almost mundane products we woodworkers have found many, many other uses for waxed paper. By the way, we still consider it waxed, but the coating is actually paraffin, and most manufacturers now simply call it "wax paper" which is a misnomer, but I digress…įigure 9 - Freezer paper under a glue-up. My earliest school lunch sandwiches were wrapped in waxed paper, not ensconced in ZipLock bags. And since the Great Depression, waxed paper has been a ubiquitous presence in American kitchens, used to preserve and protect food. So, like many great ideas, waxed paper was an evolutionary advancement, not a revolutionary invention. An important military or political dispatch carried by a runner would be useless if the person's sweat or inclement weather dissolved the message. Throughout the middle ages, important messages were often coated with beeswax or other oily non-water permeable substances to protect them while in transit. Most agree that waxed paper was invented by Gustave Le Gray in 1851 for use in photography, but, like so many things, the story actually goes much further back in time.Įgyptians knew that papyrus could be coated with oil to make it water resistant and semi-transparent. Our old sleep-deprived buddy Thomas Edison claims to have invented waxed paper, but amongst his almost eleven hundred U.S.
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