Nonconductive shiny metals

There are mirrored plexiglas products. I am not sure that they do not have a conductive back, but I think it would be worth looking into.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Keep the whole world singing . . . . DanG (remove the sevens) snipped-for-privacy@7cox.net

Maybe an anodized aluminum?

You can put a shiny plating on plastic. Look at plastic toys .. Toys'R'Us? The shiny plating might be conductive, but the plastic won't be. - GWE

Pure silicon is not very conductive. Then again, it's not very shiny.

And it's not a metal. Don't feel bad, I thought it was too until I looked it up.

What about the mylar they make helium party baloons from - don't know if it's conductive, but it sure is shiny.

Some 'metallic' mylar foils are very conductive and can prove to be extremely dangerous in the wrong circumstances. The US has a standing law limiting the dimensions of any metallic mylar covered flying object (kites, model planes etc.) after a couple of incidents where the objects came into contact with high tension power lines.

Apparently the aluminum coating rapidly turns into a superheated plasma state that is so hot that it can cut power lines and the flash is so big it can cause retinal damage.

More info and links to the specific law can be found here......

Click on the 'Mylar/Krapton' link under 'Sail Materials' at the top of the page.

I know it's not a metal, it's a semiconductor. I can't think of a shinier non-metallic element.

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Oops, another error. Aluminum oxide is not a metal any more than iron oxide is metal or sodium chloride or any other oxide, chloride, sulfide, etc of a metal.

Some how the op's "metallic sheen" seems to have been transformed to "metal" by several readers so it sounds like he is looking for a metal that is not conductive. About like looking for a short sky scraper.

The shininess of metals is a function of their conductivity. What causes the shine is the sea of electrons that lies on the surface (and small grain size). It's nearly impossible to decouple "metallic" shine from conductivity because they are two aspects of the same thing. Gloss you can do easily (like French polished table tops) but metallic shine is tough.

By the way, the way they get metals to plate onto plastic is pretty clever. They etch the plastic (usually they actually etch the filler, the plastic is too inert). Then they put the plastic in a metal salt solution (usually nickel or copper) that chemically deposits a very thin (and fairly ugly looking) layer of conductive metal on the plastic. Now the plastic object will conduct and you can plate whatever kind of metal you want on it. If you ever have plated plastic peel, look at the back side of the plate flake and you can see the blackish chemically deposited layer.

Y'mean it's not vacuum deposited? Like, mylar... I know chromed toys and such are electroformed.

Tim

-- "I've got more trophies than Wayne Gretsky and the Pope combined!" - Homer Simpson Website @

Ach, the plasticizer in many plastics make the process of trying to vacuum plate the plastic virtually impossible. The chemical depositing works a lot better for the base layer of the metal and can be done very easily without any real problems. There are several chemical processes that will deposit a solid film of metal on anything that is approximately solid, even butter.

-- Why isn't there an Ozone Hole at the NORTH Pole?

ther is no ozone layer on the north pole because there has to be somthing to hold the pole

[ ... ]

Agreed.

Look at the "Subject: " header. Just in case your newsreader hides it once you are reading the article, I'll copy it down here:

====================================================================== Subject: Re: Nonconductive shiny metals ======================================================================

It sure sounds to me as though he is looking for an insulating metal.

Enjoy, DoN.

? error ? - high metallic sheen cold be plastic. It doesn't mean Metal. I suppose your definition of metal throws out rust. So what is your metal ? definition that is.

Martin