tomhudson's Journal: Cheapest "White Board" solution

White boards (aka Marker Boards or Dry Eraser Boards) are handy. They also come with a few problems. At $50 for a 4'x3', they're not expensive, until you want to buy 3 or 4. Here's a way to make 5 whiteboards for less than the price of one.

1. Buy a half-dozen pre-cut sheets of Corrugated plastic sheet, a roll of two-sided carpet tape, and a couple of rolls of electrical tape (electrical tape comes in black, white, red, blue, green, yellow, etc, so knock yourself out).
2. Apply the electrical tape to the face of the corrugated plastic all around the edges, to make a border. Don't bother trying to apply it to the sides to hide the holes - it's not worth the hassle, and doesn't really show anyways.
3. Put a half-dozen pieces of "hypocrite tape" (that's what I call the carpet tape - after all, it IS two-faced :-) on the back of the board, and stick it to the wall or appliance of your choice.

I made 5 4-foot-wide white boards this weekend in less than an hour. The materials, including 8 dry markers, cost less than one comparable white board w/o the dry markers.

They're light enough that you can easily stick them up alone, and they do the job. They're cheap enough that you can give them away, or bring one to work as your "personal" white board, and if the surface gets munged up or someone uses a permanent marker by mistake, you can just layer another one on top - and when you get a thick enough stack, you can start using it as a combination cork board/white board. Pin a note to it, and write README on the board with a big arrow pointing to the note.

You're also not limited to white. To make something that REALLY stands out, get some yellow corrugated board, plus black dry markers. Or be really impressive - get a 4 foot by 8 foot sheet for a really MONSTER-sized board.

Cheap, good, and fast - pick all three.

Hardware stores

[nocomment]

Another cheap solution (same actually just another way to find it) is to go to the hardware store and pick up the backing used for shower stalls. It's the same material as the "official"(tm) white boards but for about 1/10th the cost.

Re:

[tomhudson]

There are a few other products that can also be used - a clear sheet of glass, Plexiglas, Lucite, or even safety glass would also make an interesting marker board - especially if you edge-lit it. You could even put some wallpaper or a poster as a background. Sandwich the paper between 2 sheets, and it's reversible, which would be handy in places like restaurants and stores, if you set it up so it's free-standing. Or, if your fridge is white and you're REALLY cheap, just use the dry marker directly on it.