Creating a whiteboard

We made our own whiteboard from two, 4 ft. x 8 ft. acrylic-coated hardboard panels.  The space for which the double-sided whiteboard was designed allowed for an assembly suspended from the ceiling, hence the two whiteboards.

To keep the supple boards from bouncing back in response to the pummeling of handwriting, we used 1x2s to construct a 4 ft. x 8 ft. framework and sandwiched it inside the two whiteboard panels, one on each side of the framework, back-to-back.  Both panels and framework were then encased in a frame in which thin molding holds the panels and framework in place.  Because we did not want to pierce the acrylic surface of the boards, the thin moulding does all the rest of the work of holding them in place.

An Internet search for something like how to make a whiteboard currently yields plenty of helpful detail about creating and maintaining such a board.  The cost-savings of the do-it-yourself approach, in this case, was significant.

Tags: 2012, Tools supplies and operations