I prefer to avoid the routine use of tools on the line but when it can’t be avoided I like shadowboards. The shadowboard gives a consistent, highly visible, location for the tools.

I like pegboard, though the traditional fiberboard material is generally not suitable for plant use. I recommend polyethylene pegboard available from Grainger, MCS and other suppliers.

Once designed, the outline of each tool is usually drawn on with a marker pen. This works but usually is not exactly beautiful.

I saw an idea the other day that is so simple and obvious I slapped myself upside the head. It is a fairly standard shadowboard. The interesting thing is what they did after they had gotten the layout the way they wanted it.

They used a drawing program like AutoCad or Corel Draw to make a full size poster of the tool shadows. For aesthetics, the background of the poster looked like stainless steel diamond plate and had the company logo and cell number at the top.

The poster was laminated with a heavy plastic then glued to the pegboard. The hangers were then mounted. An alternative would be to mount the paper poster then place a thin, perhaps 1/32″ sheet of plastic over it. The hangers, once screwed down would hold it in place.

When doing the layout in AutoCad, don’t forget to plot the holes that will need to be punched for mounting the brackets.