Perforated hardboard is tempered hardboard which is pre-drilled with evenly spaced holes. The holes are used to accept pegs or hooks to support various items, and perforated hardboards are therefore used for purposes such as tool boards in workshops. Peg-Board is an expired trademark used as a brand name by the

Masonite Corporation Masonite is a type of hardboard, a kind of engineered wood, which is made of steam-cooked and pressure-molded wood fibers in a process patented by William H. Mason. It is also called Quartrboard, Isorel, hernit, karlit, torex, treetex, and pr ...

, first used in 1962, which is often used as a generic term for perforated storage boards made of hardboard, wood, metal, or other material. It is commonly used in retail settings along with steel rods sticking out to hold peggable products such as bagged potato chips, printer ink, and action figures.

Materials

Perforated hardboard and similar systems are made of a variety of materials, each of which has different characteristics that affect the range of possible uses. Standard perforated hardboard is made of wood fibers, usually with the addition of resin, and tempered by coating with a thin layer of

linseed oil Linseed oil, also known as flaxseed oil or flax oil (in its edible form), is a colourless to yellowish oil obtained from the dried, ripened seeds of the flax plant (''Linum usitatissimum''). The oil is obtained by pressing, sometimes followed by ...

and baking at a high temperature to polymerize the oil. This provides more water and impact resistance, hardness, rigidity and tensile strength. Hardboard will bend and warp with age and in the presence of moisture, and will sag under heavy weight (the exact weight is based on the dimensions and quality of the hardboard) unless secured to even weight distribution among several mounting points. Perforated wood is more labor-intensive to manufacture and will warp and splinter under heavy loads, but is sometimes selected for

aesthetic Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed th ...

reasons. An inexpensive wood such as pine is often used, and it may be chemically treated for strength and fire retardant characteristics or turned into

plywood Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...

first. Perforated wood may be mounted as a thin strip instead of the more square shape of perforated hardboard. Metal pegboard systems are usually made out of

steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...

. Metal pegboards are usually mounted in strips, as it would be comparatively costly, cumbersome and inefficient to sell in larger sheets. Sufficiently thick metal pegboards will not sag between mounting points. Instead, the system's mounting on surfaces such as wood beams or sheetrock will usually fail under a heavy weight before the metal pegboard does. Manufacturers advise customers to hang tools and other gear based on the estimated strength of the mounting points. High quality metal pegboard systems use extruded holes, while other systems have the holes drilled after casting.

Functions

Storage and display

Perforated hardboard and similar systems are designed to support peg hooks. These are usually mounted by hand and support themselves with gravity alone, though some systems use

screws A screw and a bolt (see '' Differentiation between bolt and screw'' below) are similar types of fastener typically made of metal and characterized by a helical ridge, called a ''male thread'' (external thread). Screws and bolts are used to fa ...

instead. These screws can be supported by additional

straps A strap, sometimes also called strop, is an elongated flap or ribbon, usually of leather or other flexible materials. Thin straps are used as part of clothing or baggage, or bedding such as a sleeping bag. See for example spaghetti strap, sho ...

to prevent the metal from bending under a significant load. The hooks in turn act as storage for a variety of objects such as

tools A tool is an object that can extend an individual's ability to modify features of the surrounding environment or help them accomplish a particular task. Although many animals use simple tools, only human beings, whose use of stone tools dates ba ...

and

keys Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (map ...

. Heavy duty metal systems can support the heaviest objects, such as push lawnmowers and vertically stored bicycles. These storage systems are usually mounted in utility areas of a household such as a garage, storage

shed A shed is typically a simple, single-story roofed structure that is used for hobbies, or as a workshop in a back garden or on an allotment. Sheds vary considerably in their size and complexity of construction, from simple open-sided ones de ...

or workshop. They may also be used in professional environments such as factories, along with the back shelving for discount stores (larger and thicker versions are used by big-box stores), but are rarely seen in more

white collar White collar may refer to: * White-collar worker, a salaried professional or an educated worker who performs semi-professional office, administrative, and sales-coordination tasks, as opposed to a blue-collar worker, whose job requires manual labor ...

areas of a workplace.

Games and education

Pegboards are used in games and for educational purposes. Games based on the pegboard concept include peg mosaic boards, where a child may create pictures and lettering by inserting colored pegs in the board, in a way similar to pixel art. These boards are designed so that the pegs do not fall out when the board is tilted from a horizontal position. Pre-school and elementary maths and geometry can be taught using a pegboard . Basic operations like sum, subtraction, multiplication and division can be illustrated by moving pegs on the board, in a similar way to an abacus. Concepts like the associative property of sums, multiplication tables, square and triangular numbers, can also be easily demonstrated in a graphical fashion.

Exercise

Large vertical pegboard can also be used for climbing exercises, whereby athletes hold two large pegs to insert into the holes of the pegboard to move up the board.

Typical dimensions and layout

These dimensions apply to standardized hardboard systems. Other systems may use their own spacing.

References

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External links

Q&A / Pegboard and Custom Color Pegboard
at Ask the Builder Engineered wood