Aluminum tape is what we used on my hoods. It is normally used on ductwork I think. Is heat and moisture resistant, and is highly reflective.
Mylar instead of reflectors?
- Thread starter cephei
- Start date
While an excellent reflector of heat, aluminum foil/tape is poor reflector of light.
No, but DIY mylar sheets inside a hood doesn't do anything for restrike. It's a lot of effort for not much more reflection than white paint.
Mylar is better that white paint, but not that much....not worth the effort/cost in my opinion when you could just save the money for some good reflectors later on.
NB: High Gloss paint actually isn't better at reflecting light. It produces a great specular reflection, but it doesn't necessarily work "better". Flat white is generally recommended. For hoods/reflectors, I use high-heat enamel spray paint. Goes on with a flat finish, heat from the bulbs won't affect it.
As jmhart said, mylar is certainly *more* reflective than flat white paint, but it's hardly worth the difference. Especially when the design of the reflector is *far* more important than its absolute reflectivity. You don't just need the light to bounce off, you need it to go to the right spot.
As jmhart said, mylar is certainly *more* reflective than flat white paint, but it's hardly worth the difference. Especially when the design of the reflector is *far* more important than its absolute reflectivity. You don't just need the light to bounce off, you need it to go to the right spot.
Doesn't that depend on the design of the hood and how well you recreate a proper parabolic reflector?
I think the concept in question is whether you should coat the inside of a boxed-in canopy with mylar or just paint it white. If this is the case, the white paint will do about as well as the mylar. If you are going to create a proper parabolic reflector, the additional reflectivity would be useful.
The time, effort, and cost required to create a parabolic reflector would definitely make it worth just buying the reflector.
I haven't read through the thread in a long time, and I don't really feel like going through it again right now. Hoppycalif is using a PAR meter to test various reflectors and surfaces. Mylar is mentioned in a few places. Just skimming, I noticed some test results on page 4:
As you can see, the mylar scored very poorly, and surprisingly the aluminum foil came out on top. This is just an example, and in no way concludes the discussion. I'd rather not detail it because it's been too long since I've reviewed it. I might fill you with BS if I tried. Read pages 4-8. That should be enough to clarify it for you.
