Sawatzky Blog: Sign Invitational 2020 Update

Coastal Enterprises, manufacturers of Precision Board HDU, is proud to announce a series of guest blogs written by Dan Sawatzky of Imagination Corporation, which will be posted on the Precision Board Blog each month. This month Dan Sawatzky shows off his 2020 Sign Invitational entry, reveals his design for the Coastal Enterprises’ ISA Sign Expo booth, and gives high marks to some of the other people competing this year at the ISA Sign Expo.

In Dan’s own words…

The 2020 Sign Invitational is now only a few weeks away. I suspect this means most of the competitors are now starting to work longer hours on their pieces. With most sign shops being very busy these days time is going to get tight for these folks!

I did my first sketches a few minutes after the theme for this year was announced. On the long plane ride home I worked on it some more and had the concept drawings finished within a week. A day or two later I designed and started machining the first pieces from various weights (Ed note: AKA densities or PCF) of Precision Board. Each week I put in a few hours and made great progress too. Things slowed down some whenever we got really busy in the shop. My goal was to finish my entry by the New Year. I missed that deadline by a couple of weeks but still finished my entry in plenty of time.

My piece is called ’The Snapper’ and is a humorous tribute to the sign painters of old. The well worn model ’T’ truck is perched precariously on the steep gravel road while the sign painter is busy at work on his latest masterpiece. The truck has working headlights and a sound system tucked inside. My friend Jim Wells from Fantasonics Engineering designed a series of marvelous sound tracks of the truck starting and running. It is as humorous as the sculpture and fits perfectly.

In concert with my entry I was also working on a second similar piece that will be showcased at the Coastal Enterprises booth. I put the last touches to this piece today, the second week of February. Coastal Enterprises have been generous sponsors of the event since its inception five years ago. They also promote our display heavily during the ISA Sign Expo show. Thanks!

sign invitational

Most of my fellow competitors are keeping their entries closely guarded but I have seen some of the concept art. Two of the competitors have shared pictures. The quality of this year’s event promises to be higher than ever!

Mo Flint from Atomic Barn Studios entry is still in progress. His piece won last year for the small size category and he will be the man to beat this year without a doubt!

The theme of this year’s contest is ‘Less is more’.

Mo designed a hippo bride with one foot on a scale and her very small wedding dress behind her. Underneath in a layered ‘cake’ are all the wonderful foods she loves and craves! It will be a wonderful piece when Mo is done as he is a master at detail.

Amanda and Rusty Gibbs from Gibbs Graphics in Washington State are first time entrants this year. They have pulled out all the stops to create a very imaginative piece. It looks fabulous in the photos and I know it will be even nicer in person. I can hardly wait to see it!

All of the competitors are looking forward to unveiling their creations at the fifth annual Sign Invitational. We hope that everyone who attends the 2020 ISA Sign Expo in Orlando stops by to vote for their favourite!

The ISA EXPO is April 2, 3, 4, 2020 in Orlando. The Sign Invitational entries will be displayed at the Signs of the Times booth #235.

sign invitational

Sawatzky’s Imagination Corporation is a small family company that specializes in the design and creation of dimensional signs and environments. They tackle projects of any size from small signs to entire theme parks. Their work has garnered numerous national and international awards.

Dan Sawatzky is best described as a creative force and visual storyteller extraordinaire. His art career spans almost fifty years of magic. Dan’s passion is to design and create imaginative places that take people from the normal world to a setting of delight and wonder.

Coastal Enterprises manufactures Precision Board HDU, a versatile, cost-effective and eco-friendly urethane sign material that is particularly effective for making professional-looking indoor and outdoor dimensional signs.  It is a closed-cell rigid substrate that does not rot, warp or crack.  You can request free samplesget a quote or sign up for periodic newsletters packed with helpful information.

Sawatzky Blog: Adding Texture to Precision Board with a Die Grinder

Coastal Enterprises, manufacturers of Precision Board HDU, is proud to announce a series of guest blogs written by Dan Sawatzky of Imagination Corporation, which will be posted on the Precision Board Blog each month. This month Dan Sawatzky shows us how he quickly adds a hand-chiseled texture to Precision Board projects using an air-powered die grinder.  He says it adds value to their work while actually saving fabricating time!

In Dan’s own words…

One of the things we are renowned for is texture. We incorporate textures into almost everything we do. Texture creates a wonderful look and in our opinion is a way to add value to our work while actually saving us time in fabricating our creations. Even though we often use modern machines and tools, our work looks and feels hand-made.

A while back we created a sign for a chiropractor. I textured the good sized project using the method I describe below. On a whim I timed the process as I worked. The six foot by four foot sign took me about 18 minutes to accomplish the texture using an air-powered die grinder. When I delivered the sign the customer was extremely impressed I had textured the sides and back of the sign. As he gently rubbed his hand over the beautifully textured surface he commented to me that it must have taken FOREVER to accomplish the task. I smiled at him and said ‘You have no idea!’ He happily accepted his sign and paid his bill knowing he had received excellent value.

Most sign makers finish the sides and backs of their signs by sanding out every imperfection, filling any holes or dings and sanding some more as necessary. That’s perfectly fine as Precision Board sands easily. We take a different tact on most projects. Rather than sand things smooth, we instead deliberately introduce texture to these surfaces. I love the hand-chiseled look but I do it with a die grinder. It is a whole lot faster!

We are currently creating an order for a mini golf that had forty signs in all. With forty signs and three layers of Precision Board in each sign it made an impressive stack.

We routed the top 1” thick layer of Precision Board with a woodgrain texture and raised lettering and edges. The centre layer was 3/4″ thick PBLT-30 Precision Board HDU with a hole in the centre. We inserted a piece of 3/4″ plywood into these centre holes so we had something secure for our mounting screws (from the back). The third layer was another piece of 3/4″ 30lb Precision Board. I glued these layers together using PB Fast Set glue. To keep things together while the glue set up I used lots of clamps and a couple of screws in the corners to keep things aligned.

Once the glue was set I took off the clamps and fired up the die grinder. I did the top outer border first using random strokes to quickly take off just enough material to leave a texture.  Then I did the side edges before adding small quick 45 degree bevel to the top corner.

The backs of the signs were then textured and another small bevel on the back corner edge at a 45 degree angle. In less than two minutes this sign was ready for paint.

Sawatzky’s Imagination Corporation is a small family company that specializes in the design and creation of dimensional signs and environments. They tackle projects of any size from small signs to entire theme parks. Their work has garnered numerous national and international awards.

Dan Sawatzky is best described as a creative force and visual storyteller extraordinaire. His art career spans almost fifty years of magic. Dan’s passion is to design and create imaginative places that take people from the normal world to a setting of delight and wonder.

Coastal Enterprises manufactures Precision Board HDU, a versatile, cost-effective and eco-friendly urethane sign material that is particularly effective for making professional-looking indoor and outdoor dimensional signs.  It is a closed-cell rigid substrate that does not rot, warp or crack.  You can request free samplesget a quote or sign up for periodic newsletters packed with helpful information.

Using Primer to Make Wood Grain Texture on Precision Board HDU

Coastal Enterprises, manufacturers of Precision Board HDU, is proud to announce a series of guest blogs written by Dan Sawatzky of Imagination Corporation, which will be posted on the Precision Board Blog each month. This month Dan Sawatzky shows us how he used our FSC-88 WB Primer and some bristle brushes to create a faux wood grain texture on his Precision Board HDU mermaid statues.  These statues will eventually get a weathered look and be installed next door at The Hazelnut Inn.

primer

In Dan’s own words…

The mermaids we routed last month from massive blocks of PBLT-30 Precision Board on our Rotary axis MultiCam turned out fabulous. The two figures were routed to steel structures with some 2” x 2” tubing down the back. These steel structures will be used to mount the figureheads permanently over the bed in the Hazelnut Inn in due course. For now they served as a sturdy temporary stand while we worked on the pieces. We knew there would be a fair amount of handwork to finish things off, but that’s the fun part!

We used a grinder and air powered hand die grinder to take away the bits we didn’t want and also to add a bit of basic textures. The patching and additions of clothing were done using sculpting epoxy.

Then it was time for some more magic. The perfect product for this step was some FSC-88 WB Primer. We generally have two gallon cans on the go in our shop. One is new and just as the folks at Coastal Enterprises sent it to us – a thick bodied primer. The second gallon we keep is much thicker because we’ve had it a while and have been using it. The primer thickens up marvelously if the lid isn’t nice and tight when it is stored. This super thick primer was brushed on generously and then various stiff bristle brushes (think pieces of broom) were dragged through it to form the woodgrain.

In key areas we drilled out a section, sculpted in a knot using sculpting epoxy and then formed the woodgrain around it. After the primer had dried we went back with a thin bladed grinder and die grinder to cut in some deep slits in the woodgrain. A teeny bit of sanding was done to knock off some lumps and even things out a tad. Our goal was to make the figureheads look like they were 200 year old weathered artifacts.

Then it was time to begin the painting magic. We began – as always, with three hand brushed coats of acrylic house paint.

Once the base coats of paint were in place and thoroughly dry it was time for blending on more colours. The two figureheads will still get more blended coats of paint onto the woodgrains. We’ll age things down considerably and then go on to the glazing to make it all look like an ancient artifact. Those wonderful woodgrains created using Coastal Enterprises FSC-88 WB Primer will shine through when we are done.

Sawatzky’s Imagination Corporation is a small family company that specializes in the design and creation of dimensional signs and environments. They tackle projects of any size from small signs to entire theme parks. Their work has garnered numerous national and international awards.

Dan Sawatzky is best described as a creative force and visual storyteller extraordinaire. His art career spans almost fifty years of magic. Dan’s passion is to design and create imaginative places that take people from the normal world to a setting of delight and wonder.

Coastal Enterprises manufactures Precision Board HDU, a versatile, cost-effective and eco-friendly urethane sign material that is particularly effective for making professional-looking indoor and outdoor dimensional signs.  It is a closed-cell rigid substrate that does not rot, warp or crack.  You can request free samplesget a quote or sign up for periodic newsletters packed with helpful information.

Rotary CNC Routing of Precision Board Faux Statues

Coastal Enterprises, manufacturers of Precision Board HDU, is proud to announce a series of guest blogs written by Dan Sawatzky of Imagination Corporation, which will be posted on the Precision Board Blog each month. This month Dan Sawatzky shows us how he used their rotary CNC machine to route some faux statues from Precision Board HDU and walks us through making adjustments to get the best final product.  These statues will be part of the themed decorations at The Hazelnut Inn next door to Imagination Corporation’s studio.

In Dan’s own words…

We’ve had our rotary CNC MultiCam router since late in 2013. When we first took delivery of the wonderful machine we did a few projects with it but the task of programming the machine was cumbersome (for me) because it involved writing some G-code to run on the router. It was much too complex for my artistic brain – especially since I only used it occasionally. After those first few test projects the router hasn’t been used.

Thankfully, since that time, the good folks at EnRoute software have made things a whole lot simpler. Our good friend Jeff Hartman, one of the program’s authors, came up for our last workshop a couple of weeks ago and stayed afterwards for a couple of days for some one-on-one training with the new and improved software. By the time he left we felt confident we could put our rotary CNC to good use.

Being Sawatzkys, we jumped right into the deep end, of course. Peter has been itching to start work on the two ship figureheads that are to be mounted over the bed in the North Star suite of the Hazelnut Inn. He downloaded a customized STL file of a figure which would be the starting point for the figureheads. Two mirror images will be created, and once he adds the final details, they will be differently-clothed sisters.

Peter laminated up two massive blocks of PBLT-30 Precision Board, two feet in diameter and five feet long. It took the considerable effort of four of our crew to lug the blocks into the router room and chuck them into the router. Then it was the moment of truth…

We knew we would have a significant learning curve with this project and so we kept a careful eye on the process, pausing the router to make adjustments by hand as needed. The block was first routed into a perfectly round cylinder, then the actual routing process began – ten passes of one inch each. The first three passes were flawless… and then that pesky ‘CONE OF DEATH’ reared its head. This ‘cone of death’ is determined by the length of the bit and the size of the collet. We were using as long a bit as we possibly could, but because the block was close to the gantry we couldn’t use anything longer. To remedy the situation we brought out the disc sander and air power die grinder. As the collet approached the material we would remove as much as we needed to continue, knowing we would have to add it back in by hand later with sculpting epoxy. Most of the material we removed was towards the rear of the figure which will not be a problem.

The first figure turned out great (for a first effort), but while the machine ran we figured out some quick solutions. As Peter prepared the second mirrored figure he made a few modifications in the EnRoute software. He added some mesh ‘balloons’ to fill the problem areas, primarily between the arms and body as well as between the legs. These areas will be covered with clothing when he hand sculpts in any case. We also increased the size of the bit and decreased the overlap on the rough passes. This cut our routing time substantially. The second figure routing went immeasurably better and we only had to remove a touch of material using the hand grinder to make room for the collet. The finish pass cleaned things up nicely.

rotary cnc

On the second figure we were also relaxed enough to grab some video for the blog. We hope you find it as exciting as we did.

 

The figure on the left is the first one and the grinding efforts to remove material to make room for the CNC collet are visible on the backs of the arms and hips. These areas will be filled in later by hand using sculpting epoxy. The second figure after digital modification needed almost no hand adjusting. Both figures will receive a thin layer of sculpting epoxy to add details, woodgrain and clothing to make them look like weathered, hand rotary-crafted figureheads of old.

You can bet we are busy dreaming up more projects to rout using this exciting rotary CNC tool!

rotary cnc

Sawatzky’s Imagination Corporation is a small family company that specializes in the design and creation of dimensional signs and environments. They tackle projects of any size from small signs to entire theme parks. Their work has garnered numerous national and international awards.

Dan Sawatzky is best described as a creative force and visual storyteller extraordinaire. His art career spans almost fifty years of magic. Dan’s passion is to design and create imaginative places that take people from the normal world to a setting of delight and wonder.

Coastal Enterprises manufactures Precision Board HDU, a versatile, cost-effective and eco-friendly urethane sign material that is particularly effective for making professional-looking indoor and outdoor dimensional signs.  It is a closed-cell rigid substrate that does not rot, warp or crack.  You can request free samplesget a quote or sign up for periodic newsletters packed with helpful information.

Vala’s Pumpkin Patch Gets Harvest-Themed Signage

Coastal Enterprises, manufacturers of Precision Board HDU, is proud to announce a series of guest blogs written by Dan Sawatzky of Imagination Corporation, which will be posted on the Precision Board Blog each month. This month Dan Sawatzky shows us how he works with one of the most successful agri-tourism farms in the world; Vala’s Pumpkin Patch, to create branded signs with a fall harvest theme and ensure that customers have plenty of photo-worthy moments at the farm while also enjoying the myriad of on-site attractions and restaurants.

In Dan’s own words…

We don’t do many Halloween celebration projects in our shop as our projects tend to be of a much more permanent nature. But we do have a great customer that has a fall festival that includes some Halloween attractions. Vala’s Pumpkin Patch in Gretna, Nebraska is one of the largest and most successful agri-tourism farms in the world. Each fall, over a period of about six weeks, they welcome more than 300,000 guests to their farm. It’s an incredible seasonal operation with more than fifty attractions and eating establishments. The family run farm has been in operation for thirty-five years.

We met the owners last fall and they asked us to design and build a number of signs for their farm. I visited the farm this last spring to get to know them and the operation. Over the next few months we built six large signs using PBLT-30 Precision Board HDU along with our other favoured mediums including steel, fibreglass-reinforced concrete and sculpting epoxy.

Vala’s Pumpkin Patch

This year’s projects were enough to fill a fifty-four foot semi-trailer. Once the signs were securely loaded (with inches of space to spare) and on their way, I jumped on a plane to be there to open the truck doors and help them unload and place the signs around the farm. The signs were a huge hit to say the least.

Vala’s Pumpkin Patch

Vala’s Pumpkin Patch

A few weeks ago I was pleased to return to the Vala’s Pumpkin Patch for four days while the farm was in full operation. My job was to observe the farm and then help them decide the projects we would tackle next year. We have made some very optimistic plans for the coming years and you can bet you’ll see some of those projects chronicled here in the coming months.

Vala’s Pumpkin Patch

I really enjoyed my time on the farm this fall season. The best part was enjoying a variety of pies they bake – up to a thousand pies each day during their busy season!

Vala’s Pumpkin Patch

Sawatzky’s Imagination Corporation is a small family company that specializes in the design and creation of dimensional signs and environments. They tackle projects of any size from small signs to entire theme parks. Their work has garnered numerous national and international awards.

Dan Sawatzky is best described as a creative force and visual storyteller extraordinaire. His art career spans almost fifty years of magic. Dan’s passion is to design and create imaginative places that take people from the normal world to a setting of delight and wonder.

Coastal Enterprises manufactures Precision Board HDU, a versatile, cost-effective and eco-friendly urethane sign material that is particularly effective for making professional-looking indoor and outdoor dimensional signs.  It is a closed-cell rigid substrate that does not rot, warp or crack.  You can request free samplesget a quote or sign up for periodic newsletters packed with helpful information.