Hi All,
I’m looking for a whiteboard-like material that can be engraved and cut. I’m just about at the point of buying white acrylic and putting in a black filler for the engravings but I thought I’d ask if anyone is aware of anything else. The major requirement is that the writeable surface needs to be white and hold up under repeated uses of dry erase markers.
Thanks!
Chuck
I’m not sure acrylic can do that. have you tested dry erase on a piece?
If it does work, there are 2-color engravable acrylics out there, check inventables.
Dry-erase on acrylic works, but the colors are a little faded.
I needed some name tags for a computer security conference, so I use PG white and PG red. I put some white acrylic paint in the red engrave for the lettering.
Acrylic paint gave kind of a rough edge to the engraves. And while my pen is a little faded, the color on the white acrylic is about half as intense as a real whiteboard. HOWEVER: The dry-erase part works perfectly. Wipes off easily.
NOTE: Black works way better than blue, green, or red.
I’ve got a pad of paper from Hobby Lobby (it’s their house brand) which is dry erase cardstock.
Ah, here it is:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/EUCATILE-32-sq-ft-96-in-x-48-in-Hardboard-Thrifty-White-Tile-Board-HDDPTW48/205995949
This is what we use for whiteboards at my high school. Haven’t tried to cut or engrave on the laser. It’s HDF with an acrylic coating on the front. I don’t see anything in the MSDS that would suggest not lasering it with proper ventilation.
I don’t know how long they’ll stay clean, but there are dry erase paints you could cover materials with – either painting then ablating (check MSDS first) or score outlines, peel off paper outside of scored areas, then paint, using the paper as a mask for parts you want to stay the material’s color.
There’s even clear dry erase paint, which could be neat over wood or patterned acrylic
i bought a couple of sheets of dry erase covered MDF from HD and engraved them with no problems. other than they were a b**** to cut, but the engrave was good.
now, that said, once you engrave part of it off, any dry erase in that area will not erase, of course. i mean, i’m sure that’s obvious, but just in case it’s not.
What gwygonik said. A friend of mine used it in his daughter’s bedroom. He said it was thick and that it had some potent vapors. Considering she is twenty now, I’m thinking this was at least a decade ago.
The wall paint is a lot more common now, so hopefully not as nasty vapours–there is a spray can version, though it’s not as good as the two-part paints you have to mix. I didn’t have great results on wood (cheap frame)–though likely just not enough coats to overcome the porosity of the wood & smooth enough for clean erase…
The precoated “paper” sheets are a great idea for lots of uses!
I’ve used the HD stuff too. Seems to work fine. I see there are also self-adsive rolls of dry-erase material. Tempting.
Johnson plastics has laserable white board in a few different thicknesses as well as chalk board material.
https://www.johnsonplastics.com/rowmark-bright-white-1-16-dry-erase-message-board
The product picture on that page is hilarious. 
Hey, it’s a white board!! 
So it seems 
God help you if you lose it in winter. I think it’s behind the polar bear in that pic?
Next to the cute white snow bunny
Ah, right. I almost missed the bunny.
Evonik/Acrylite makes a white acrylic sheet that’s specifically designed for use as markerboard (ACRYLITE® Markerboard). I picked some up at TAP Plastics and can confirm it cuts and works great. I can’t find it on the TAP site at the moment, unfortunately.
How much of a beast (that’s the word you meant, right??)) are we talking? I’m contemplating whether this would be a sensible thing to cut regularly.
i don’t remember specifics now, it was back in may. it was at least a couple of passes. it really depends on what the MDF base consists of. at least what i was doing was rectangular cuts, so not something complicated.
i only did a couple of small ones at home on the GF. in the end, the big one i did (16x20) i ended up doing at work on the universal which cut much easier (75w).
Thanks for the fast reply! So not so amazingly terrible to cut that it seared into your memory forever
Home Depot currently has at least three different options, none with much information on the base. Sounds like a crapshoot, much like the chalkboard.
