Ok let me touch on a few points here from different people. A lot of stuff is being said and it is a bit hard to sort out since in the end no one knows exaclty what I am talking about and I have not described it all perfectly.
So let me start at the top and give a little more detail since everything everyone has stated is quite obviouse to everyone else in here, as well as me.
Here we go:
The part is made from clear cast acrylic, is about 0.240" is diameter x 0.053" thick. It has some small features to it like ultrasonic energy directors, flash traps and a thru hole of 0.080". Looks a lot like the smallest pieces LEGO makes. During my prototype phase of my project I speced out Vapor Polish in my "Finish" box of my drawing. This is what I always do. I got the parts from a very trusted supplier that does good work. The got me the parts and I could not tell if they were polished or not seeing as how they were so small and I figured maybe it is hard to polish such a small part well. I used them and they worked. Later on after buying the parts again, this time my purchasing department used a vendor with a shorter lead time, the part parts showed up looking VERY clear. This was the first time I thought to myself. "Maybe the first lot I got was not polished". The polishing ended up making my parts weld slightly worse. The parts that were NOT made to the drawing actually worked better! So of course I changed my drawing, but that is not why I started this thread. What I wanted to know is that for something that is clearly subjective, like clarity in this instance, how do people spec things out? Of course there are ways to spec anything in the world, but I can't make this thing cost more than $2, and I only need to buy a couple hundred at a time. The part is small, and my company is not going to send the parts out for testing, we are also not going to buy expensive equipment to test for clarity. Those ideas are literally on another planet in terms of something a company like this would ever spend its money on. Also it not so critical that someone could ever get hurt or anything like that. It is litterally like making a LEGO that needs to be clear, (or actually not clear, due to the welding), not to any specific spec, just clear. We can't test this and I can't expect the QA person to know what the correct level of clear is. Can I? I have thought of setting up a part catalouge that shows how polished parts should look. This would give a gold standard, and if a part comes in not looking like the standard the lot can be failed, or engineering can be called to confirm the failure?
Anyways, I have gone on long enough. I have so much more to ask but feel like this example is maybe a bit too convoluted to get thru here. General consesuse seems to be test or find a new vendor, or to add a clarity spec. Something I can't even measure. Maybe the gold standard and training of the QA inspector is the way to go... or only way to go given the constraints I have...