Tempered glass alternatives?

Chris Lewis wrote:

According to Mark :


"DanG" wrote in message
news:yRNUb.16193$Q_4.5335@okepread03...

All of the plastics scratch and discolor.


Tempered is your fastest, easiest go.


You can ask about laminated glass. I don't know if it is made



Will do - cheers!


Laminated glass often isn't nearly as tough as tempered, many of them are
just as brittle as glass. The only advantage is that the shards are (mostly)
contained.

Tempered glass is amazingly tough, it'll stand up to just about anything.

Thats why its not used for car windscreens anymore. The driver comes off
far worse than when hitting laminated glass.



Probably the door had a manufacturing defect. The next one won't do it.

GE touts Lexan as unbreakable if memory serves.

Used in race cars for windows for that reason -
DRAWBACK
scratches so easily it's not funny -- replace often..... if you want to be able
to see through it....

Cheryl
last semester of lawschool! yipee!
A HREF="http://www.dragonbeads.com" DRAGON BEADS /A
Flameworked beads and glass
http://www.dragonbeads.com/

Ian Stirling wrote in
:

In rec.crafts.glass Michael Daly
wrote:
On 6-Feb-2004, Steve Ackman
wrote:

GE touts Lexan as unbreakable if memory serves.
snip
bulletproof as long as you're talking relatively slow
handgun bullets. (.38, .45, etc.) A .22LR did penetrate
however. (Velocity counts more than total energy.)

I think it's unlikely that the OP plans on using a .22LR in his
bathroom.

However, that's thick Lexan. CDs are made of polycarbonate
as well. Take an AOL CD and fold it - it will shatter.
Polycarbonate's strength is a function of its thickness.
It's definitely not unbreakable.

Virtually all materials' shatter resistance is proportionate to their
thickness, bit it types of plastics or glass. When shattered, most
thinner plastics do break into sharp edged shards. There *are* types of
safety glass formulated to break into rounder-edged pieces that are
relatively harmless, particularly in thicker dimensions.


Take a dremel, and a sanding drum.
Push the CD onto the dremel sanding drum, and turn onto full speed.
The CD will explode if there is the smallest flaw.
Do not put any part of your body in line with the CD, I ended up with
spears of CD sticking into the plasterboard by quite a way.

You clearly have too much time on your hands!

According to Mark :
Thank's for the detailed response. The shower door was newly installed just
before I moved into the house. That would probably make it about 3 months
old at a guess and was used roughly twice a day. It's (or was) a frameless
door.

There's a good chance that the shower door is still covered under warrantee.

Don't do anything until you check.

Without a doubt toughened should be your best bet. Never even seen a
toughened panel breakage in a cubicle.

Is toughened the same as tempered or is is different to both tempered and
laminated? (I'm a glass newbie so please excuse the ignorance!)

Toughened appears to be another word for tempered.

Lexan (5mm or 6mm) could be your best option, it is tough, even moreso
than
toughened glass for impact, and should present no issues with safety. Just
a
cleaning / appearance issue over time, but that is minor compared to the
other option.
Some things to consider.
Are there other panels you would need to change also ?
Lexan is very expensive compared to any of the glasses mentioned above.

Yes, this sounds like a good option. Worth the cost and I don't mind that it
leaves water marks as glass does this anyway!

Lexan is _very_ tough, but not only is it _quite_ expensive (you're probably
looking at well over $200 for a shower door in lexan alone), the surface is
relatively soft and scratches/scuffs very easily. Even toothpaste or baking
soda can scratch it.

Plexiglass is cheaper, less tough (will shatter much more readily than
lexan) but has a somewhat more scratch resistant surface.

Tempered glass probably is the best choice for a transparent (or nearly
transparent) shower door. Laminated glass may well be a bit better,
but I suspect a lot more expensive, and likely easier to break.

Tempered glass shower doors (aside from manufacturing defects) is able
to stand up to hammer blows. Breaking tempered glass is surprisingly
difficult to do (unless you know the trick ...)

I wouldn't consider clear plastic for a shower door because of the
scratch/scuff problem.

If you don't need transparent, I'd suggest an opaque fiberglass panel
of some sort.
--
Chris Lewis, Una confibula non set est
It's not just anyone who gets a Starship Cruiser class named after them.

According to Ian Stirling :

Take a dremel, and a sanding drum.
Push the CD onto the dremel sanding drum, and turn onto full speed.
The CD will explode if there is the smallest flaw.
Do not put any part of your body in line with the CD, I ended up with
spears of CD sticking into the plasterboard by quite a way.

Try that with just about anything of a similar diameter and thickness,
and chances are you'll get similar results. Ie: dremel grinding disks (at
a much smaller diameter).

Centripetal forces on a 4" diameter object turning at 30,000 RPM are
pretty extreme.

There's a reason that the dremel bits aren't very big...
--
Chris Lewis, Una confibula non set est
It's not just anyone who gets a Starship Cruiser class named after them.

In rec.crafts.glass Chris Lewis wrote:
According to Ian Stirling :

Take a dremel, and a sanding drum.
Push the CD onto the dremel sanding drum, and turn onto full speed.
The CD will explode if there is the smallest flaw.
Do not put any part of your body in line with the CD, I ended up with
spears of CD sticking into the plasterboard by quite a way.

Try that with just about anything of a similar diameter and thickness,
and chances are you'll get similar results. Ie: dremel grinding disks (at
a much smaller diameter).

Centripetal forces on a 4" diameter object turning at 30,000 RPM are
pretty extreme.

I really doubt it got to that speed.

Anyway.
a=v^2/r, radius is about 7cm, rim speed is around 7*2*pi*(30000/60) =
219m/s.
a=219^2/.07=685157m/s^2, or around 70000G

The experiment was to find out at what speed CDs explode, as CD drive speeds
are getting pretty silly.
48* CDrom drives (even assuming it's only 48*200, not 48*500) result in
around 100G at the rim.

The CD I weighed was 15g.
At 70000G, the forces trying to rip the CD apart probably exceeds
250Kg, if it got to 30000RPM.