Somebody used permanent ink on the whiteboard

That's a surprise.

That isn't.

A non-permanent marker's ink will usually dissolve "permanent" ink on the board. write / draw over part of the offending material and

It works (from memory).

You might have some white spirit, or possibly isopropyl alcohol. Tippex solvent, sold for recovering solidified bottles of the stuff is, or used to be, trichloroethane, which is quite a good solvent. Or there are various sticky label removers, and also things advertised as ink removers. Ask Mr Google, as many sites have suggestions.

toluene or xylene (test on a conspicuous area of the whiteboard as some plastics will be affected by the toluene or xylene.)

Trichlorethane is ?now a banned solvent. Try cellulose thinners, you used to be able to buy small tins of it in hardware stores.

Not uncommon. When I was teaching ( I retired in 2014) it probably happened once a week in the school.

I’m surprised nail varnish remover didn’t work- was it the ‘old fashioned’ stuff based on acetone? The modern stuff is hopeless. I used to keep a small bottle of acetone in my cupboard, it worked for me.

Only use a tiny amount, too much and you can remove the ‘shine’ / surface - if the board still has one. Some older ones can be a bit dull.

it doesn't always contain acetone nowadays

One of those melamine foam magic erasers? but with a very light touch as they are abrasive...

I was about to suggest going over it with more marker pen

The stuff designed for _gel_ nail varnish contains acetone, the ordinary stuff often doesn't.

ITYM inconspicuous, but I was going to suggest toluene if Anthony can get it (I'm not sure where) and is willing to be careful with it. It's rather dangerous to inhale and something of a fire hazard.

Perspex polish, assuming it was not solvent based ink, you may be able to grind it away and polish it. Brian

IPA will do it. I've used the electronics lab spray cans to clean pen off whiteboards before. It's also useful for getting off the residue of dry erase when it's been on there long enough to not erase any more.

It's well worth having some around for general solvent, degreasing and also sanitisation.

Theo

India Pale Ale?

I've used the electronics lab spray cans to clean pen off

Be careful, my board was messy and the cleaners did me a favour during covid time by giving it a good clean. They used something slightly abrasive. It was very clean, but nothing that I wrote on it after came off. It was £600 for the replacement panels.

No IsoPropyl Alcohol (no you can't drink it). But I 'spect you knew that an' was jus' being (well tryin' to be) amuzin'.

But2 didn't Anthony 'say' he'd already tried alcohol(trust he meant IPA not Grant's finest). Sorry can't help with the original problem.

Ooops thought I was in UK.REC.SHEDS hence the jovial (?) style, many apologies.

Isopropyl Alcohol. I cannot spell it either, that is why its called IPA. Some electronic contact cleaners can work, but do be careful they do not contain a solvent for the plastic. You know I've often wondered why white boards are white? We used blackboards for many years, and to most people the contrast was easier to see as the white of the white board is dazzling to the eye. I'm sure the same material could be used with coloured pens just the same, but you would need a white pen and some lighter colours. Brian

Try paint stripper

The question is whether the ink has dried, in which case a solvent works, or has polymerised, in wihch case it wont.

IPA is IsoPropyl Alcohol.

See "other names" column, here.

Not all pens are Sharpie, and the older markers (square tip) used a different solvent (xylene? it didn't smell like just xylene).

This is why, in a vandalism incident, it helps to have the marker in hand, to track down potential solvents.

The problem with this project, is white boards "stain" and the ink can go below the surface. You can move the ink on the surface, but I don't recollect stained whiteboards being the same any more afterwards. You could always see the faint colours of the incident in the board. And this is not "ink in the cracks", it appears to have moved into the bulk material a tiny bit. Almost as if a solvent, attacked the surface of the whiteboard.

And that would be the problem with using stronger solvents on it. Ruining the surface.

I often wonder if the white board company, has a "cleaning web page" for correcting incidents like this. You will need the branding off the back of the board, to track down the maker.

Hmmm. They don't like you using IPA here. Of course, they may be trying to sell their own cleaner product.

This is an example of a white board purposeful cleaner chemical.

Paul

That is the old name.

The IUPAC (Inmternational Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry) have its name aa propan-1-ol and propan-2-ol.

The former is often referred to as propanol and the latter referred to as isopropanol.

The chemical formula is still the same for both propan-1-ol and propan-2-ol as C3 H7 OH (propane is C3 H8) but the structural formula is different.

The number indicates which carbon atom the hydroxyl OH group is attached to, so in propan-1-ol the OH is on one of the end carbon atoms, whereas in propan-2-ol the hydroxyl OH group is on the 2nd carbon atom in on the carbon chain which just also happens to be the middle carbon atom. Thats where the ISO bit comes in as teh OH group is lterally in the middle of the carbon chain.

See