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.
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!)
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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!
Very understandable! Neither standing next to a 2' shard of glass or walking on thousands of tiny glass needles are pleasant. I think one of the plastics (Plexiglas or Lexan) sound like the best bet.
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.
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.
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...
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