pic: Wood Coast Drive

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by EricH

Ah. (Makes me wonder why acrylic is found with FRC teams--and their "unskilled" drillers--around, but that's beside the point.)


Now, for the impact resistance: polycarb vs birch. Polycarb deflects, birch absorbs. They're about the same, but I'm going to have to give that to the plywood on strength-to-weight ratio. The main issue with birch ply is that it absorbs by getting dented or, eventually, splintering. (Acrylic never even enters this discussion, as the "standard" test for identifying unknown clear plastic is to clamp firmly and hit with the biggest hammer in the area--if it doesn't break, use the polycarb, otherwise it was acrylic.)

Plywood loses to poly on strength to weight. Lexan is crazy strong. I stood on a freely Standing peice of 1/16 lexan and it just bent I stepped off bent right back into shape no problem. I can't say the same for a piece of 1/16 plywood.