Perforation

A perforation is a small hole in a thin material or web. There is usually more than one perforation in an organized fashion, where all of the holes collectively are called a perforation. The process of creating perforations is called perforating, which involves removing bits of the workpiece with a tool. Old-fashioned lick-and-stick postage stamps are perforated. When a tool makes small cuts in the material (without removing anything) it is called 'rouletting', because that tool often resembles a roulette wheel, with blades around the edge. Raffle tickets are a good example of rouletting. Perforations are usually used to allow easy separation of two sections of the material, such as allowing paper to be torn easily along the line. Packaging with perforations in paperboard or plastic film is easy for consumers to open. Other purposes include filtrating fluids, sound deadening, allowing light or fluids to pass through, and to create an aesthetic design. Various applications include plastic films to allow the packages to breathe, medical films, micro perforated plate and sound and vapor barriers. In philatelic studies and in the identification of stamps by collectors, a perforation gauge is used to measure the perforations in each 2 cm.