Step 1) Buy showerboard or tileboard from your favorite building supply store. (Its 3 to 5 mm thick, one side is particle board, the other is smooth polished white)
2) Clean it, then buff with pledge a couple times. Remove the excess. It will probably be slippery, but that’s just how pledge is. I’ve heard but not tested that scotchgard works better.
3) Hang it up with screws. You might want to glue it to something more rigid to help keep it flat.
Congratulations, you just saved $300. We did this on Saturday, now the software room has a 16 ft. wide by 4 ft. tall white board. Its glorious.
It won’t be quite as nice as a real whiteboard, but the cost/benefit is fantastic. I have also read that red or orange markers will stain if left for a long time, but we just started using it so I can’t say for sure. If erasing ever becomes difficult, just buff it again with pledge. You can clean it with windex if it gets dirty.
Pictures will be up as soon as my friend, Nick, uploads them.
Yes, most classrooms at the school I attend have whiteboards too. They are nice because they are cleaner than chalkboards and quite often easier to read, unless you get a teacher that never cleans the board. The Expo board cleaner does work well. It even takes permanent marker off of a whiteboard.
My mother made small boards for her math class out of a similar, if not the same, material from Home Depot, and I can vouch for their long term effectiveness. I believe these boards were made about 5-6 years ago and they still work fine, and thats with pretty heavy use too.
Our team is probably going to get a whiteboard for the pits this year, to write what match number’s we are, our teammates, what alliance we are on, and who’s driving (if we decide to rotate in more than one driver).
I can vouch for how nice it is to have a whiteboard in your pits, especially the match numbers, estimated times, allies and opponents and scores of previous matches. That, and team reminders can be put there, such as group photo times, etc.
The thing is your hands can get super dirty on whiteboards. We were doing some calculations and drawing designs and when you are thinking fast, its much easier to reach out and wipe it with your hands.
Edit: topic merged… steve got to posting b4 me…
Hey guys, some friends of mine figured out how to make a wall sized white board for around 20 dollars. It’s simple, cheap and effective.
all you need:
1/8’’ Smooth Panel Board
“Pledge” brand Wood polish
Paper towels
Step 1: Buy the panel board, you can get this at Home Depot in the back by the tile/paneling section. they cost between 9-11 dollars each and come in sheets of 8x4. you can also pick up the pledge here.
Step 2: wipe the boards down with some water and dry them. ( Home Depot is a dirty place… lol)
Step 3: Spray with Pledge and polish. This gives a nice protective coat that helps not let the markers set in ( and it smells good too!) wipe off any excess and let sit to dry a bit.
Just remember what you learned in Chem class in tryign to get off the marker “stain” left on showerboard by red/orange markers:
Like dissolves like.
Just write over the “stain” with another marker and it should whipe right off. We had to use this little technique after we left my officemates status as “We never really know where he is” for too long.
Some guys from my dorm made a little trip to Home Depot before winter break and came back with $300 worth of these boards. They have them all cut up nicely, and facilities is going to hang them properly once we get back. I wonder how many square feet of wall that leaves not covered in whiteboard.
One day, I am going to own a room that has a whiteboard wall with a projector, and a whiteboard table. It is going to be so cool.
I actually keep around one nearly dead whiteboard marker for just this purpose. It also tends to work on other inks that accidentally make their way onto the board.