Making the Hazelnut Inn Model with 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 at the end of each month. In this month’s entry, Dan gives us some insight into using Precision Board PBLT-30 to make an incredibly detailed scale model – like this one for the Hazelnut Inn he profiled last month.

We find endless uses for Precision Board in our shop. One use is to build scale models. Precision Board is easy to work with and cuts precisely. It also holds detail extremely well – especially the 30 Lb Precision Board we use.

As we considered all the implications and challenges of building the Hazelnut Inn project it very quickly became evident that the normal drawings and plan views were not up to the task. The building, with its many angles, elevations and roof slopes was far too complex to easily convey to the professionals and building authorities we would be dealing with. In order to have our planners, engineers and builders understand what we were going for we needed a model.

Initially we were going to do just a quick massing model which would have sufficed for that process but we decided instead to do a full blown, highly detailed model. This would ensure we could plan out the many walkways, features and landscape elements as well. We could also work out the complex colour scheme at the same time. The model could then be used for many other purposes as well.

We started by using our plans to build the various massing blocks of the building components. We settled on half inch to the foot for the scale. Peter built the cutting files in EnRoute and then we sliced the model into sections to allow it to be cut from 2” thick Precision Board. Once the files were cut it was a simple matter of fitting the pieces together and fastening the layers tight.

Once the blocks were all in place we went over the model carefully, fixing various small problem areas and making necessary changes. It’s one thing to plan something on paper, quite another to build it in 3D. Although the necessary changes were relatively small it didn’t take long for the model to pay for itself as the changes would have been very costly at the building stage.

Once we were happy with the massing model we added smaller bits of Precision Board to create the overhangs, garden walls and other details. We worked quickly and fairly rough at this stage, filling in gaps with sculpting epoxy. Then it was time for the fun part – the detailed sculpting. The sculpting epoxy was pressed on and worked in small sections. It took Peter and I a little more than a week to do all of the areas. As we progressed we had meetings with the people doing the building drawings, engineering and the builder to make sure they understood every aspect of what we wanted to achieve.

We are now into the detailed painting of the model. We are approaching it just like we will the full sized version. We picked out the colour selection and then bought gallons of what we needed. The model will only take a teeny bit of the paint but the rest will be used as construction proceeds. We applied the base coats of paint and then did the glazes – just like the real thing.

The model is going to be spectacular and will be used in our marketing efforts for Hazelnut Inn as well as Imagination Corporation.

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.

You can get free samples of Precision Board HDU, request a quote, and sign up for the monthly Blog Roundup from Coastal Enterprises.

RELATED:

Signing Off (Dan Sawatzky’s Blog)

Why Dan Sawatzky Exclusively Uses PBLT-30 Precision Board HDU

Imagination Takes Flight: Our Interview With Dan Sawatzk

Rob Estes and His Farmhouse Precision Board Sign

Rob Estes with Brushstroke Signs in Paducah, Kentucky recently designed and built a Precision Board HDU sign with a unique faux wood texture to the background. He used a feature in his software program that randomly creates textures based on a set of variables. Rob tells us about fabricating the Farmhouse sign and how he got that textured background just right.

Rob used PBLT-18 for this sign, which is 30″ wide, 38″ tall and 5″ inches thick at the thickest point and 3.5″ inches thick at the thinnest point (as seen in the photos below). He routed it on his Shopbot CNC. The designing was done in Adobe Illustrator and then imported into V-Carve Pro 9.0 where he added the textured background.

“V-Carve has a new feature in it, Texture Toolpath, so you can select it and design your own grain patterns and different background patterns,” says Estes. He adds, “It gives you some slider values and you can pick and choose and mess with it to find something you like. You can preview it on screen and if you don’t like it, hit the reset button using those values and it will give you a new texture.”

Carving both sides of the Precision Board sign took about 8 hours, including some stops and bit changes, etc. Rob then primed and painted it. “I put a glaze coat on the background to get a darker, richer look for the wood grain,” says Estes.

Total fabrication time? 2-3 weeks total from beginning to end.

In addition to 18lb Precision Board, Rob also likes to use PBLT-30 because it carves cleaner for details on the dimensional stuff. “For me and several of my friends, we try to use the 30lb.” He says, “always choose Precision Board HDU. It’s a superior material for dimensional signs like this.” Rob adds, “you don’t have to worry about dinging a corner up with the 30lb. It’s a hassle getting a dent and having to fill it or have extra sanding time. Precision Board HDU is the only material I have found that the 30lb is a class of its own.”

Brushstroke Signs is located in Paducah, Kentucky. If you’d like to talk to Rob Estes about his work and get a quote, or get involved in Letterheads or Walldogs, give him a call at (270) 442-8665. You can also email him at rob@brushstrokesigns.com or check out their website. Be sure to ask about his portfolio because he definitely has enough talent and experience to help you out, no matter what the need is!

Coastal Enterprises offers free samples of Precision Board HDU. You can also sign up for the monthly Blog Roundup. Need primer or adhesives? We offer a full line of products, including primers & fillers, adhesives, and textures & coatings.

Book that Brett Boros Precision Board HDU Sign!

When Brett Boros with Signworks Studios in Connecticut wanted to add some pizazz to a sign for a client on a budget, he came up with a three-dimensional book and bookmark fabricated out of PBLT-18 Precision Board HDU. Brett used his CNC to rough out the pattern and then hand-carved the details with a dremel and die grinder.

Brett has both a sign-making company and a printing company, so when a printing customer of theirs wanted to have a sign made, they knew where to go. “We put some ideas together for them,” says Boros. “They were on a budget, but we wanted to do something cool that would still fit into what they wanted to spend.” Because of the budget concerns, he went with Precision Board instead of the more expensive sculpted concrete.

They designed a dimensional book out of 18 pound Precision Board to go on the church’s main sign. “We did the design in Adobe Illustrator and then brought it into Enroute, did the toolpath and then sent it to our MultiCam 3000 CNC router.

He used the CNC to carve the perimeter shape of the book. The main body of the book was one 2″ thick piece of Precision Board. The cover was another piece of ¾” thick Precision Board. Once the main shape was roughed out by the CNC, he then hand carved the details in with a dremel and die grinder. “I use my Multitool a lot from Bosch. That works good for hogging out material quick,” he adds.

For this job Brett used a one part urethane adhesive to attach the cover to the pages and put a few screws in the back to attach it to the main part of the sign. He then primed and painted it with four or five coats of Benjamin Moore Exterior Aura glaze on the books.

Brett used several different substrates in bringing the entire sign together. The background of the sign is Komacel PVC with an aluminum structure framework for it. The post sleeves were also Versatex PVC. The books were Precision Board.

Signworks Studios is a full service sign shop, where they try to stand out by creative work for their customers. The company is family-owned and is housed in a 3000 square foot commercial building. They offer a lot of in-house capabilities, including custom metal fabrication, CNC router service, hand sculpture/carving, digital printing, and more. They like to use different materials and come up with unique ways of doing things. Brett also has a commercial print shop called New Milford Printing that handles all aspects of printing and offers a lot of in-house capabilities. Signworks Studios and New Milford Printing are both located in New Milford, CT. You can give Brett Boros a call at 860.799.5700 or Brett@signworksstudios.com. You can also check out Brett Boros on Instagram.

Coastal Enterprises offers free samples of Precision Board HDU as well as our companion products, including primer/filler, textures, and coatings. You can also sign up for our monthly Blog Roundup so you don’t miss any helpful tips or tricks for working with Precision Board!

Powder Coating an Interior Frame to Protect Your HDU Sign

A sign is your chance to show off what makes your business special, and when your business is signs, you want it to really shine! Mayfair Signs in Chilliwack, BC, Canada, specializes in powder coating of sign frames, something not many people are doing. They recently created a CNC routed Precision Board HDU sign for their mailbox with a powder coated metal frame inside to protect it from the elements. Kevin fills us in on the benefits of powder coating and why they prefer Precision Board for their sign clients.

Kevin & Darren of Mayfair Signs recently created a branded sign for their mailbox post. They offer signs, sandblasting and powder coating and really wanted the sign to show off those techniques. They used Precision Board PBLT-20 to fabricate the sign, which is 28″ x 15″ and 3″ thick. Darren did the design with Enroute Software and cut the Precision Board with their MultiCam Apex3r CNC. The cut time took about an hour per side with approximately two hours for painting.

The sign is attached to a metal post that has been sandblasted and powder-coated so that they could show off the powder coated look. The HDU sign itself has a metal frame inside it for stability and resistance to rust. “When we do a metal frame inside an HDU sign, we’ll sandblast and powder coat it.” Kevin adds, “It really cleans off the metal and etches the surface for the powder to stick to it.”

Kevin routed a slot into the two halves of the Precision Board and then attached the metal frame using PB Bond 240. “Where the eyelets are sticking out of the sign, they can be exposed to rust if not properly coated, and that rust can go down inside your sign.” Kevin adds, “That’s why we powder-coat the inside metal as well to protect the sign.”

Mayfair Signs puts powder-coated metal frames inside all their signs for this reason. Whether it’s a hanging sign or a wall-mounted sign that has metal bolts going into a wall, the powder-coating protects the metal elements of the Precision Board HDU sign from the weather.

Powder coating is a protective coating that is applied as a free-flowing, dry powder. The main difference between conventional liquid paint and powder coating is that the powder coating does not require a solvent to keep the binder and filler parts in a liquid suspension form. The coating is typically applied electrostatically and is then cured under heat at 400 degrees Fahrenheit to allow it to flow and form a “skin”. It is used to create a hard finish that is tougher than conventional paint. Kevin says it has been used in the automotive industry for years, especially when you see black rims on cars. Mayfair Signs not only does signage, but also specializes in automotive, motorcycle, snowmobile parts, rims, household fixtures and more, and offers over 50 colors of powder coating.

Kevin & Darren prefer to work with Precision Board HDU over wood as a sign substrate. “It’s just so easy to work with, especially when machining on a CNC. It cuts like butter.” They add, “This material resists weathering, lasts up to 10x longer than wood, won’t absorb water, chip, crack or peel, unlike conventional materials.”

Mayfair Signs is family owned and operated. They have been making and selling solid cast aluminum house signs, cottage signs, custom garden plaques and address plaques for over 30 years. They have over 40 different sign shapes and sizes and more than 450 emblems in their cast aluminum line of signs. They guarantee high quality workmanship on all the signs they produce. All work is done on site. Visit their website, drop them an email, or give them a call at 866-823-4141.

Coastal Enterprises offers free samples of Precision Board HDU if you want to try it for yourself. Our website offers numerous resources, including how-to videos, helpful blogs, and a newsletter sign-up, so you get our Monthly Blog Roundup and won’t miss a thing!

Dan & Peter Sawatzky’s Fantastical Hazelnut Inn Signs

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 at the end of each month. In this month’s entry, Dan tells us how they created the signs to go with the three suites in the Hazelnut Inn, a fantastical property with themed rooms catering to the anniversary and honeymoon crowd. The Sawatzkys used plasma cut steel and Precision Board HDU PBLT-30 to fabricate the signs.

Every sign maker has a dream project where the sky is truly the limit. A project where signs aren’t the last thing to be done, a project where the signs inform the design of everything that follows. We have just such a project in the works.

When Peter and Hailey were married a few years ago they stayed in a castle on their honeymoon. They had to travel all the way to Europe to do it. That stay sparked an idea. They would build a castle in the little town of Yarrow for the same purpose. A second trip, a year later, to the Hobbit set in New Zealand added the idea of an underground suite to the mix. And a third idea of an ‘explorer’s suite’ was added for good measure. They purchased some land next door to the shop that was big enough for the three suites and a new house for their growing family and the planning was begun in earnest.

The inn will cater to a honeymoon and anniversary demographic. The suites will be luxurious and create an experience guests can get nowhere else. Each suite will be about 600 square feet with a like sized private garden. We will lavish exquisite detail throughout.

The project was named Hazelnut Inn, honouring the former use of the property. Over the last year they have been working on the final plans and done the extensive engineering such an imaginative and unusual project requires. Proper zoning is now in hand with final permissions and permitting underway. While we were waiting for those things we began work on the signs.

The dimensional signs reflect the character of each suite. They are constructed using plasma cut steel and 30 lb Precision Board. About half of the work was done using our CNC machines with the rest of the labour provided by our skilled team.

This project will unfold over the next year and a half. In that time there will be a whole lot of construction and detailed fabrication. I’ll be taking lots of pictures and posting updates from time to time. Stay tuned…

You can get free samples of Precision Board HDU, request a quote, and sign up for the monthly Blog Roundup from Coastal Enterprises.

Read January’s guest blog here.