Tempered glass alternatives?

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

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! DRAGON BEADS Flameworked beads and glass

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.

Ian Stirling wrote in news:xnrVb.1307$ snipped-for-privacy@stones.force.net:

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

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.

You clearly have too much time on your hands!

According to Mark :

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

Don't do anything until you check.

Toughened appears to be another word for tempered.

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.

Not a bad idea, but it could be translucent as well - nearly clear if well made.

Mike

According to Ian Stirling :

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...

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.