Split: Acrylic vs. Lexan

[K Rider]

Why do you prefer polycarbonate over acrylic?

 

[Redfish Hunter]

Why do you prefer polycarbonate over acrylic?

+1

Why?

Cee Bailey's main business is the aircraft industry, their motorcycle windshields are made from basically the same stuff they use to make airplane windshields. What could be better?

 

[Gmann]

Cee Bailey makes a great shield. Loved the one I had on my 06. But....They are so soft that even my lightweight bike cover scratched it. The polycarbonate is much more resistant to minor damage. Not able to answer your question Mike. I purchased the OEM touring screen for the 14ES.

 

[bigjohnsd]

Polycarbonate, a very soft but extremely tough plastic, windshields must be "Hard Coated" if they are to stand up to the mildest use. Once the hard coat is scratched the scratch is there forever. Attempting to polish out a scratch in a Polycarbonate windshield just results in more, but finer, scratches. For this reason all aircraft windshields are manufactured out of plastics of the acrylic family, Lucite being the most common.

Acrylic, a much harder plastic, can be polished as no hard coat is required to protect it.

You pays your money and you makes your choice.

 

[07FJRVegas]

On my Cee Baileys and other windshields, a little Polish for plastic windshields fixes any of the small scratches.

My understanding of polycarbonate is the same a BigJohnSD - it is soft and that is why it is used in safety glasses (eg: shooting glasses).

 

[bigjohnsd]

Just spent two weeks in Daytona replacing Harley Davidson OEM Polycarbonate windshields with Memphis Shades Lucite windshields.

 

[art miller]

Bigjohnsd is correct. I had a OEM Touring screen and it was impossible to polish out scratches. I am now using CalSci screen and no problem polishing out scratches. It is not easy but with time and effort it can be done.

 

[RichDoyle]

The downside of acrylic is it is brittle. I know of numerous NT700 riders who have had their Cee Bailey's break off driving down the road. Now these bikes subject the windscreen to a kind of vibration that we don't see on the FJR, but still. They are demonstrably more prone to shattering with impact than PC.

And as far as using them on aircraft? I've seen lots of planes with stop-drilled cracks in the windshield. But they use them there because Acrylic is less subject to UV damage. Since most planes spend most of their lives outdoors and expect to be under operation at altitude, UV is a real concern. And when in motion, other than the (rare) birdstrike, impact with significant objects are unlikely. But when those birdstrikes happen, they have been known to completely shatter an aircraft windshield and allow said bird-corpse and acrylic fragments to injure occupants and make subsequent control of the aircraft a challenge. (More vertical windshields, such as on traditional Cessna singles, are particularly vulnerable.)

 

[bigjohnsd]

You pays your money and you makes your choice.

 

[bergmen]

I would never have an Acrylic windshield on my FJR (or any motorcycle for that matter). My super hard coated FJR Touring Windshield only has a few rock nicks in it after 2 1/2 years and 24,000 miles. Extremely easy to keep clean with no worries of scratching I can clean it on the road like I would the windshield on my pickup. The Acrylic windshields on aircraft are fairly safe against impacts since they are at least 1/4" thick. And since acrylic scratches so easily, you are constantly polishing the scratches out.

Polycarbonate is almost impact-proof and is the plastic of choice for any safety or impact shield used in industry, bank windows, etc. As a Mechanical Engineer I specify Polycarbonate (and PC blends) in my injection molded plastic designs. One blend that has Polyester in it is nearly indestructible and I used it in a hand held automotive diagnostic tool I designed. You could back over it with a small car and it wouldn't break. Since at that time there was no scratch resistant PC available for the display window I did use an SAR (Super Abrasion Resistant) Lucite Acrylic that worked very well. I specified a 1/8" thick piece for impact resistance and for this application it worked fine (but it was small and was only expected to be subjected to minor impacts, if at all).

National's description of their hard coating process:

https://www.nationalcycle.com/bible-quantum-innovation

Here's another good one on Polycarbonate vs. Acrylic:



JMHO

Dan

 

[Redfish Hunter]

Since many of us have covered many, many thousands of miles with our "inferior" aftermarket acrylic shields with excellent results, I cannot see the advantage. The OEM shield on Dad's '07 had more scratches and swirls on it than the Cee Bailey shield ever got. And I promise you I have always taken excellent care of that bike, it is not like we were cleaning the stock shield with sandpaper.

 

[HotRodZilla]

Since many of us have covered many, many thousands of miles with our "inferior" aftermarket acrylic shields with excellent results, I cannot see the advantage. The OEM shield on Dad's '07 had more scratches and swirls on it than the Cee Bailey shield ever got. And I promise you I have always taken excellent care of that bike, it is not like we were cleaning the stock shield with sandpaper.

Creating problems, where problems don't exist. Or maybe, finding something to dawdle over when there is nothing better to dawdle over.

 

[mikeames]

Can we get back to the discussion about which oil is the best one?

 

[08FJR4ME]

The end of that video was the best. Great minds think alike.

Nuff said,