Polycarbonate/Acrylic for Door Inserts?

No opinions on this?

If the acrylic is of a high enough quality it should look just like glass. We do picture framing here at the Arts & Crafts Center and on occasion use acrylic instead of regular glass, and unless you tap it, you wouldn’t know the difference. The only down side to it though is it tends to scratch easy. I don’t know much about polycarbonate. Since it’s used to make eye glasses I’d assume that it’s more scratch resistant. As for the thickness, we use 1/8 inch for framing, but if you’re doing something more structural, you could go with at least 1/4 inch to 3/8 inch. Anything thicker would be too heavy and possibly cost prohibitive. Acrylic, in my experience isn’t stronger then glass, the stuff we use is quite flexible. Again, not sure about the polycarbonates strength.

-- "At its best, life is completely unpredictable." - Christopher Walken

I would use glass if possible.
Acrylic is not going to look good after a couple of years, it scratches so easy. If you do use acrylic as far as clarity I don’t think it matters what kind, they do make one that has a scratch resistant coating, but it probable cost more than glass.

I would go with tempered glass.

-- Jim from Heirloom Woodshop Southern Oregon

I’m going to be using this for upper cabinet door inserts, so I don’t think scratching is too big a concern. I’ve found one or two sources online for real glass too (besides Rockler), it’s just a bit more per sq inch.