Hi Guys,
I am after your advice and opinions.
Carbon Fibre has a "Cool" image and always looks good if done well.
I am thinking of using Alufibre as a first decorative layer on a project.
Does it look good or bad on a large item?
Has anyone used it that could share pictures.

Brian.

http://ocarbon.com/blog/tag/texalium/

> Does it look good or bad on a large item?

Matter of personal taste?

Personally I'm not a fan, I've used it for a few items, the largest being around 600x400 and it never looks very special. And I find it one of the more tricky decorative fibres to get straight as it seems to pull very easily.

I have seen great looking laminates where texalium (or similar aluminized glass fibers from other manufacturers) were embedded in coloured resins.

This isn't yellow texalium, it's silver with yellow resin:

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/5337/dsc00314jj1.jpg

Looks good, is that a tinted gel or just resin?

Both.

Thank you for all the comments and pictures. The Carbon Harp I made looks very classy in black. I am not sure that it would in silver. I had a problem last week when my wife was playing at an outdoor concert. The harp was in direct sunlight and I believe it expanded enough to break a string. When I checked the tuning, another string had tuned itself sharp so was under more tension than usual. As she was not intending to play it again that day. I slackened the strings and moved it out of the sun. I was thinking that a silver one would stop this problem but not at the cost of its looks.
Brian.

I think Brainfart has given a very generous example of how to do it extremely well.  In his post he mentions about getting the base color closer to the texalium color.  I think in your case you would have to do some tests because it would possibly/probably require 3 layers of texalium before you got rid of all the black carbon coming through the weave.  I have used texalium in 2 layers, and you could still see through it in spots.

Thank you. I think I will stick with Carbon and maybe make a white or reflective cover. I don't want to add the weight of 3 layers that are only decorative. The Harp only weighs 3.6Kg or 8lbs.

Brian.