Custom sand-blasted designs are Akron Shower Door's specialty. Kunkle's sister, Christine Bailey, does the design work, and his showroom floor displays doors etched with an anchor, an art deco-inspired flower and a floral design repeated from wallpaper. He even had one couple request that likenesses of their faces be superimposed on buff bodies - an incentive for their exercise regimen, he says with a grin. Tempered glass, the type that's used in automobile windows, is used in most shower doors now. It's safer than standard glass because it breaks into tiny cubes rather than shards.
Anodized aluminum is pretty much standard on all but the cheapest doors, the dealers say.
Anodization is an electrolytic process that creates a hard coating on the aluminum, which won't pit or allow the color to come off. Powder coating is often used for colored frames to create a hard finish, Kunkle says. He recommends avoiding painted doors, however, because they can chip easily. All those choices in glass types and frame colors can add up, though. That can come as a shock to his customers, he says.