Polycarbonate, Aluminum, and Acrylic: A Comparison

Indestructible vs Easier to Work: Which should you choose?

The Differences Polycarb and Acrylic:

Durability:

Polycarbonate and Aluminum:

These are basically indestructible. It would be very hard to destroy a Multiboard / Clipboard panel made with either material. You can hammer it. You can throw it onto a hard surface. You can drop hard things onto it. You can step on it. It will dent, but it would take a lot of force to actually break.

Click here for a video of hitting a 1/16th polycarb panel with a hammer.

Acrylic:

While not fragile, per se, it is somewhat brittle and care needs to be taken not to drop acrylic panels on hard surfaces (especially on the corners), and not to drop hard objects onto it.

Acrylic panels can be easily reinforced or repaired with clear heavy duty tape (such as Gorilla or T-Rex Brands) to increase durability.

Cost:

All three materials have a more-or-less similar base material cost in terms of sq. ft. for the needed thickness. Therefore the cost is largely driven by the manufacturing cost.

Acrylic and Aluminum: These can be laser cut, and are therefore inexpensive to make. We laser cut acrylic in-house and outsource the aluminum production (it requires a much more powerful machine). Laser cutting is a very efficient production technique, therefore the cost of each additional hole or design feature in a MultiBoard / Clipboard panel is basically zero (this is why MultiBoards have so many cuts, even if some will never be needed by any given user). Because we laser cut acrylic in-house we can offer quick turnaround times on custom acrylic products (custom aluminum panels would have a turnaround time of at least a week).

Polycarbonate:

Polycarbonate can’t be practically laser cut and instead must be machined with a cnc router (what we use) or a different manufacturing technique. This adds a lot of time and machinery cost, and it’s time that a person is required to be there operating the machine. Therefore, it’s time-expensive to make and each additional cut adds a linear amount of a time cost to a panel. For this reason it’s our most expensive option, and we now charge extra for the cuts that few people are likely to use rather than sell a more expensive product with holes few people are likely to use.

Cosmetics:

Acrylic:

Acrylic is beautiful and because it’s cut with a laser the edges come out very smooth. It is a harder material than polycarb and is somewhat scratch resistant.

Aluminum:

Aluminum is similar to acrylic in that it is laser cut with virtually perfect geometry and a consistent edge finish.

However, while it is harder, the shiny finish makes small superficial blemishes easier to see. You may see these, especially around the edge of the panel.

Polycarbonate:

This is one area where polycarb loses out to acrylic. The edges are machined (a cutting bit removes the material) and getting beautiful edges in polycarb is difficult. Sometimes they come out nice, but sometimes they are a bit rough, and we do not want to scrap material and delay orders over minor cosmetic issues. Our machining setup also does not always produce perfect geometry, especially around curves. Polycarb is also a softer material and scratches easier. Panels may show small imperfections, but there will not be scratches on the writing areas.

Please note, in general for Polycarb and Aluminum our cosmetic quality control question is “will any imperfections be noticeable at a glance after this board has been in the field?”

Stiffness:

Acrylic:

We only offer acrylic panels in 1/8th inch (~3.2mm) and it’s fairly stiff.

Polycarbonate:

We offer polycarb panels in both 1/16th inch (~1.6mm) and 1/8th (~3.2mm). The thinker 1/8th is reasonable stiff, but the 1/16th is fairly flexible.

Aluminum:

We now offer aluminum in 1mm (0.04”) by default (if you really want 1/32nd or 1/16th contact us and that can be arranged). This is between the two thicknesses below.

Weight:

For a full size panels, the weights are roughly:

Acrylic (1/8th, 3.2mm): 250 grams

Polycarb (1/8th, 3.2mm) 260 grams

Aluminum (0.04”, 1mm): 173 grams

Volume wise, Al is about twice the weight of either polycarb or acrylic. However, only Aluminum is offered in 0.04” (1mm) thickness, so the two lighest options are either 1/16th polycarb with panels that weigh in at about 130 grams each (but are very flexible) or 1mm aluminum panels that weight about 173 grams each (but are much stiffer).

Bottom Line: Which should you choose?

If your primary concern is cost, or you don’t mind taking care not to drop your MultiBoard / Clipboard on hard surfaces (and otherwise not abuse it) your best option is acrylic.

If you mostly care about weight, you should choose either 1/16th polycarb or 1mm Al depending on if you want a stiff or flexible writing surface.

Do you want a stiff writing surface you ask? It depends. While generally easier to write on in the field, a stiffer panel is harder to cram into a tightly packed bag or suitcase.

If you want the best writing experience, the stiffness and relative hardness of aluminum are ideal.

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