Continuous uniform ribbons of Al-16 Si, Al-12.5 Si-1 Ni and Al-1 2.5 Si-1 Mg were prepared by melt spinning. Microhardness was measured. The as-melt spun values were 1280, 1370 and 1500 MN m(-2) which relax on thermal ageing to 700, 700 and 800 MN m(-2) for Al-16 Si, Al-Si-Ni and Al-Si-Mg, respectively. The hardness values of the melt spun ribbons are higher than the as-cast rods from which the ribbons were produced by a factor ranging from 1.8-2.2 times. Tensile testing at room temperature shows that the load-elongation curves are linear with a change of slope occurring in some of the specimens. These curves also show serrations in the case of as-melt spun and the intermediately annealed Al-Si specimens, while no serration was observed in the fully annealed samples. No serration was observed in the Al-SI-Ni and Al-Si-Mg alloys. UTS values were 420, 270 and 100 MN m -2 for Al-16 Si, Al-Si-Ni and Al-Si-Mg, respectively. These values show that the rapid solidification process improved the tensile properties significantly in Al-16 Si and Al-Si-Ni alloys while no significant improvement can be detected for Al-Si-Mg alloy. A discussion is given on hardness relaxation and tensile testing results in terms of silicon precipitation.