I once made a white board out of one of those transparent office chair mats. I just stapled it to my white wall. I never ended up using it extensively, but it worked pretty well. If you want them professional-looking at more cost and slightly more work, consider just painting the back of a piece of plexi glass white, or just the wall behind it. That’s how this institution solved the same problem
(Edit: I researched some more and, due to ghosting issues, acrylic glass (or plexiglass) is not an ideal whiteboard material.)
You could make 10 giant white boards for ~1000dollars, according to this website. A cheaper, if less stylish option, buy these 4′x4′ panels for ~50 each.
If you want to go even more DIY, here’s a list of whiteboard materials:
Melamine
Painted steel
Ceramic (glass) fired onto a steel surface in a kiln. The only material which does not ghost if the ink is left on for long periods of time.
Melamine seems like the best bet. Look for melamine-laminated plywood, as it will likely be as high-quality as most store-bought boards. Here’s the type of thing you’d want, and it’s very cheap. But you’d have to find someone willing to sell it in small quantities.
Note, chalk is an option—and a cheap one. This chalkboard contact paper is very cheap and has excellent reviews:http://goo.gl/samVWk What’s that you say? You’re too cool for chalkboards? I assure you, you’re not. If you do decide to buy the chalk paper, remember it must be applied to a smooth surface—one reviewer recommends masonite board. You cannot stick it directly to a wall, unless the wall is abnormally smooth. Same goes for spray-on chalkboard coating—which works very well, too.
I’ve much wondered why whiteboards became popular. Admittedly chalk can rub off on your clothes, but it doesn’t stain anything, and an arbitrary piece of chalk is guaranteed to work with an arbitrary blackboard—the same can’t be said of whatever dry-erase marker you find lying around.
The messiness and potential for really unpleasant sounds, in my mind, far outweighs the need for a specific type of dry-erase marker. Though that might be related to how easily sounds can be unpleasant to me in particular.
I meant that it’s obvious that a given piece of chalk will work, whereas a given dry-erase marker may have dried up without obviously looking like it’s dried up.
I am definitely worried about the reflection issues with clear plexi glass, especially since we often take photos of our whiteboards. Maybe the white plexi glass you linked to would work, though. I might try that.
This guy has tested the ghosting properties of a bunch of different types of plastic, and he made himself a pretty good ghosting-free whiteboard that photographs well out of Polypropylene. He says marks can stay on for weeks and still erase completely.
I’ve done a bit more googling and I found this link. So it looks like melamine-coated plywood is available at hardware stores. It’s considerably more expensive than the first link, but still cheap. And at least the minimum order isn’t 100 cubic meters! What you might want to do is bring your dry-erase markers to a warehouse hardware store and test them on the melamine and whatever other materials look promising.
Also I forgot to include this in my last post: I used liquid chalk on glass back when I worked at a restaurant. Smiggle is the best brand, and very erasable. Some of the others are hard to erase without window cleaning fluid. I’m not sure if they sell it in the US though.
My research OCD has started to kick in again and I’ve been doing more searches on whiteboards. It seems this ghosting issue is the big problem, and some—though not all - have found it to be a problem on melamine boards. Polypropylene seems like the best bet for a full wall solution. Though for long term heavy use, the ceramic boards are starting to make sense; they last indefinably and have zero ghosting.
Now that I have received my degree in Whiteboard Science from the University of Google, my recommendation for MIRI is this: purchase one or two ceramic whiteboards for heavy daily use and then buy polypropylene (in terms of ghosting, it is almost as good as ceramic) for the remaining walls.
I once made a white board out of one of those transparent office chair mats. I just stapled it to my white wall. I never ended up using it extensively, but it worked pretty well. If you want them professional-looking at more cost and slightly more work, consider just painting the back of a piece of plexi glass white, or just the wall behind it. That’s how this institution solved the same problem
(Edit: I researched some more and, due to ghosting issues, acrylic glass (or plexiglass) is not an ideal whiteboard material.) You could make 10 giant white boards for ~1000dollars, according to this website. A cheaper, if less stylish option, buy these 4′x4′ panels for ~50 each.
If you want to go even more DIY, here’s a list of whiteboard materials:
Melamine
Painted steel
Ceramic (glass) fired onto a steel surface in a kiln. The only material which does not ghost if the ink is left on for long periods of time.
PET, Polyethylene terephthalate-on-steel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteboard#Surface_materials.
Melamine seems like the best bet. Look for melamine-laminated plywood, as it will likely be as high-quality as most store-bought boards. Here’s the type of thing you’d want, and it’s very cheap. But you’d have to find someone willing to sell it in small quantities.
Note, chalk is an option—and a cheap one. This chalkboard contact paper is very cheap and has excellent reviews:http://goo.gl/samVWk What’s that you say? You’re too cool for chalkboards? I assure you, you’re not. If you do decide to buy the chalk paper, remember it must be applied to a smooth surface—one reviewer recommends masonite board. You cannot stick it directly to a wall, unless the wall is abnormally smooth. Same goes for spray-on chalkboard coating—which works very well, too.
I’ve much wondered why whiteboards became popular. Admittedly chalk can rub off on your clothes, but it doesn’t stain anything, and an arbitrary piece of chalk is guaranteed to work with an arbitrary blackboard—the same can’t be said of whatever dry-erase marker you find lying around.
Personally, I just find chalk super unpleasant to use. It leaves weird dust on your hands and makes them feel all dry and weird. shudder
I don’t know why anyone else likes whiteboards though.
I agree, and I also find using a whiteboard really pleasant, especially with a fresh marker.
The messiness and potential for really unpleasant sounds, in my mind, far outweighs the need for a specific type of dry-erase marker. Though that might be related to how easily sounds can be unpleasant to me in particular.
I meant that it’s obvious that a given piece of chalk will work, whereas a given dry-erase marker may have dried up without obviously looking like it’s dried up.
Well, I did say it far outweighed it. Even that’s less of an inconvenience in my mind, but that’s getting to be very much a personal preference thing.
Thanks!
I am definitely worried about the reflection issues with clear plexi glass, especially since we often take photos of our whiteboards. Maybe the white plexi glass you linked to would work, though. I might try that.
The melamine-coated plywood sounds promising! I’ll look into that.
Chalk is messy, and our people tend to eat snacks while doing math.
This guy has tested the ghosting properties of a bunch of different types of plastic, and he made himself a pretty good ghosting-free whiteboard that photographs well out of Polypropylene. He says marks can stay on for weeks and still erase completely.
I’ve done a bit more googling and I found this link. So it looks like melamine-coated plywood is available at hardware stores. It’s considerably more expensive than the first link, but still cheap. And at least the minimum order isn’t 100 cubic meters! What you might want to do is bring your dry-erase markers to a warehouse hardware store and test them on the melamine and whatever other materials look promising.
Also I forgot to include this in my last post: I used liquid chalk on glass back when I worked at a restaurant. Smiggle is the best brand, and very erasable. Some of the others are hard to erase without window cleaning fluid. I’m not sure if they sell it in the US though.
97x49 for $35 is pretty damn awesome.
My research OCD has started to kick in again and I’ve been doing more searches on whiteboards. It seems this ghosting issue is the big problem, and some—though not all - have found it to be a problem on melamine boards. Polypropylene seems like the best bet for a full wall solution. Though for long term heavy use, the ceramic boards are starting to make sense; they last indefinably and have zero ghosting.
Now that I have received my degree in Whiteboard Science from the University of Google, my recommendation for MIRI is this: purchase one or two ceramic whiteboards for heavy daily use and then buy polypropylene (in terms of ghosting, it is almost as good as ceramic) for the remaining walls.