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The Inside Scoop on Pre-Stretched Hand Wrap

What's the big deal about pre-stretch hand wrap? Ok, I'm going to tell you, but first let me go on record that hand wrap film is
the most subjective stretch film out there. Everyone has a different opinion as to what makes the best hand wrap. Some people
like the cling to be sticky and noisy; others want it quite and easy off the roll. Beauty in hand wrap is in the eyes of the beholder.

That being said, with the advent of stretch machines with pre-stretch rollers, the
industry discovered that if a good stretch film was stretched out close to it's tensile
ultimate ( ultimate break point ) the molecules became tensioned, and the film had much
better containment or holding force on the load. It followed that if you took a good film
roll and pre-stretched it to get it close to it's tensile ultimate, and wound it onto a hand
wrap core, it would give you something like the same kind of holding force you get with a
machine using pre-stretch. The first pre-stretch hand wrap was Win-wrap developed in
Canada. Pliant Corp purchased the license for Win-wrap for North America and began
manufacturing it at their Danville, KY plant. Today there are a number of companies
manufacturing pre-stretch hand wrap of one kind or another. These include Sigma
Stretch, Linear Films, Intertape, Galewrap, and a number of off line converters. Today
Win-wrap is still the clear leader in the pre-stretch hand wrap field.

Here are the primary reasons that people like to use pre-stretch hand wrap:

l The rolls are very light and easy to use. A roll of 16" x 2,000' weighs 3.7 lbs vs 7.68 lbs for a 60 gauge 16" x 2,000'
conventional hand wrap roll. That's 1/2 the roll weigh the wrapper has to carry around while wrapping the pallets.
l The pre-stretched hand wrap rolls do not need to be stretched again when being applied to the pallet. The wrapper just walks
around the pallet as he unwinds the film. When he gets to a corner, he just tugs and snugs the film on corner to make the film
tight on the load. He can walk forward when applying the film as he does not have to "pull" the film to make it stretch. You
get a similar kind of holding force to the load as you get with a stretch machine.
l As the film has been pre-stretched, it does not "neck down" to any degree when being applied to the pallet. Neck Down is
when the film width narrows when you pull on it to make it stretch. Sometimes an 18" roll will neck down to 11" when being
applied to the pallet. Since pre-stretch hand wrap does not "neck down", close to the full width of the film is being applied to
pallet thus resulting in fewer rotations around the pallet for the person doing the wrapping.
l Most pre-stretched hand wrap rolls are produced from premium machine grade blown stretch film. The balanced Transverse
and Machine Direction orientation in the blown film helps prevent tears and breaks when wrapping on sharp and odd shaped
pallet loads.
l Only the best high performance resins are used in most pre-stretch films and quality control testing is greater. As the pre-
stretch films are being used at under 30 gauge in some cases, the manufacturer cannot afford to take chances by using
secondary resins, repro, or even low end linear low resins. Quality starts with the resins used in pre-stretch.
l Cling is one of the major areas of differientation between some of the pre-stretch films available. One pre-stretch oriented
film has poor cling and is not very popular on the cold side of warehouses. Another has almost two much cling, and it has to
be pulled off the roll; and if it breaks, it is often hard to restart easily. You want a film that comes off the roll easily but still
has plenty of cling for the cold side.
l Several of the pre-stretched films use a "rolled edge" on the film to help prevent it from breaking and tearing. This rolled
edge together with soft roll created by air that is trapped inside the roll during the rewinding process, give several of the
pre-stretched films the ability to become almost indestructible. I've seen Win-wrap rolls run over by a fork truck, picked up
again and used down to the core. Pre-stetch hand wrap can help cut down on those throw away rolls in the warehouse.

Ok, if pre-stretch hand wrap has all of those wonderful benefits, why isn't everyone using it. Remember we already told you that

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