What style of notice boards are you most familiar with? We wouldn't be surprised if pin boards made from cork came to mind first. They've been around since at least the 1920's when George Brooks, a man from Kansas had the designed patented. Over the years though, the cork pin board has had a lot of competition, in the form of felt boards. Although these are highly versatile and come in an amazing array of colours, the cork board has remained as popular now as it has always been. Why is that?
In the following post we are going to answer that question and look at just why cork pin boards have continued to be so popular.
Cork, essentially, is tree bark. The interesting thing is that although an outer layer of cork bark is found on most trees, Cork Oak is what is used for the majority of cork products. This particular cork meets commercial requirements best and this tree benefits from having a thicker bark layer than others. Tunisia, Italy, Morocco, Spain and Algeria are just a few of the places where can find a ready supply of cork oak trees.
Cork is the part of a tree that protects the most delicate fibres and bark, so it makes sense that it is a popular material to use.
Now that we’ve established what cork is, let’s look at some of the reasons why it’s popular.
Cork, because its internal structure resembles honeycomb, a lot is just taken up by space. This means that it is incredibly lightweight. However, it is less uniform than honeycomb and has irregularly sized holes with more spaces and sides between them. Although it may seem like a negative, these holes actually give cork another great property – cushioning which makes it great for noise reduction and insulation.
Cork is possibly the last thing you’d think was fire retardant, but amazingly, only the surface would be charred by fire and it doesn’t release toxic fumes. If you take a piece of cork and slice or cut through it, when you cut into the tiny holes mentioned above, you expose the holes and transform them into what could best be described as suction cups. These help the material to stick to surfaces.
A further benefit of using cork is that it is highly resistant to moisture, dust and damage. Insects will not be able to eat away at it and it does not rot. With all the great properties mentioned above, it’s easy to see why it’s still used in pin boards and why cork pin boards are the notice board of choice for many people, is it not?
We started this post by pondering over why cork pin boards have remained so popular despite the many alternatives available now. We hope though that this post has made it much clearer why cork as a material is lightweight, robust, durable and resistance to all kinds of wear and tear. These are all ideal qualities for a cork notice board.