Baja SAE Off-Road Action!

Throughout the history of the Coastal Enterprises blog, many of you have seen stories featuring universities & colleges to whom we’ve donated Precision Board Plus HDU. These stories range from Human Powered Vehicles and Solar Cars to Formula SAE and Supermileage Cars.

Coastal Enterprises is now proud to announce our first-ever HDU donation to the Cal Poly Pomona Baja Racing Team. Baja SAE is an intercollegiate engineering design competition for undergraduate and graduate engineering students. The program’s goal is to simulate real-world engineering design projects and their related challenges. Each team competes to have its design accepted for manufacture by a fictitious firm. Responsibilities include designing, building, testing, promoting and competing with their vehicle.

Sabrina Bommarito, a Cal Poly Pomona student in charge of body-design on the 2013 Baja SAE car, contacted us in the fall of 2012 requesting a donation of Precision Board Plus to be used as molds for carbon fiber parts.

The first Baja SAE competition will be held from April 18-21 in Cookeville, TN, followed by a second competition May 16-19 in Bellingham, WA. The competition involves several events including hill climbing, acceleration tests, maneuverability courses, rock climbing and an endurance race. The terrain is rough and competition is fierce! Look forward to an update and pictures of the 2013 car after the first competition.

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Cal Poly Pomona 2011 Baja SAE Car in action.

To see a recap of all of the school projects Coastal has contributed to, please visit our previous blog: Students Pioneering Future Technology.

LED or Neon: Which Do You Choose?

Our friend John Dungan at T. Ham Sign Company, whom you may remember from our story a few weeks ago about 19 Precision Board Signs For The Price Of 9 Wood Signs, sent in pictures of a Precision Board Plus backlit LED sign they recently made. Because they use up to 75% less energy than neon signs, LED signs are becoming more popular today.

Consulting with John, the owner of Sesser Autobody in Sesser, IL wanted an interior sign for his shop that would stand out, have an automotive theme, and look impressive. This led to a design incorporating Precision Board Plus, diamond pattern metal, and LED lighting.

To start, John cut a sheet of 1″ PBLT-15 on his CNC router for the background, and bonded it to the diamond pattern metal using PB Bond-240. A channel routed into the back panel provided a resting sport for the red LED’s for a halo effect. He then routed the Sesser Autobody letters into a sheet of 1/2″ Precision Board Plus and bonded that to the other side of the diamond pattern metal (see how to bond Precision Board to a dissimilar substrate here). The sign was primed using FSC-88WB, and painted with 1 Shot Paints.

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According to John, this was a quick, fun sign to make and was very well received by the owner of Sesser Autobody. Additionally, it proved to be a great opportunity to show how LED’s can be incorporated into a sign instead of neon while still providing an eye-catching, visually pleasing look. Be sure to check out more excellent work by T. Ham Sign Company at: http://www.thamsign.com.

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See The Latest Hand-Carved Creations From Piccadilly Signs!

Check out some of the latest hand-carved Precision Board Plus signs from Paul Martin at Piccadilly Signs! We always see great work from Paul, and want to share some of his newest projects.

Be sure to also check out his previous blog: Mixed Density Hand-Carved HDU Masterpieces!

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2. Piccadilly Signs Hand-carved PBLT-18

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HDU, Aluminum, Vinyl and MDO: Together At Last!

We’re always impressed when we see a sign utilizing so many different materials and we’re really excited about this one. Tom Slade, owner of Moosehead Sign, whom you may remember from our previous blog post: The Maine Signcrafter, made this sign for the Maine Air National Guard base in Bangor, ME.

Consisting of Precision Board Plus, .040 aluminum, vinyl and MDO, this sign has many of the Earth’s elements incorporated into it. Tom started this project out by taking a 4′ x 8′ sheet of .040 aluminum and bending it with a sheet metal brake, forming it into what he calls a “pan face” sign base. Using his Gerber Edge digital printer, he printed out the eye-catching background onto a piece of vinyl and applied it to the aluminum background.

Next, Tom cut out the “Starbase” letters on his Sabre CNC router out of Precision Board Plus PBLT-15. Once finished cutting he used a hand-router to bullnose the edges of the letters and hand tools to spot-check any rough areas. The letters were then mounted onto 1/2″ MDO using PB Bond-240. Tom uses Behr latex paints to finish his signs, followed by clearcoat for an ultra-smooth finish.

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The “Starbase” letters were mounted to aluminum by screwing into the MDO from the back of the aluminum base. It all came together into one sharp looking sign. For more info and pictures from Moosehead Sign, please visit: http://www.mooseheadsigns.com.

The Starbase program is a Department of Defense program designed for elementary school students, primarily 5th graders. They are typically students who live in inner cities or rural locations and are socio-economically disadvantaged, low in academic performance or have a disability. See more info at: http://www.dodstarbase.org.

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2013 Human Powered Vehicle Challenge Update!

With the Human Powered Vehicle Challenge West competition coming up mid-April, last year’s champions at the Missouri University of Science and Technology are hard at work building this year’s HPV.

Fortunately for us, keeping in touch with Lead Fairing Engineer Jon Sanders means we have early access to pictures of the 2013 HPV coming together. You may remember Jon from last years blog: How Fast Can A Human Powered Vehicle Go?.

According to Jon, because of an improved SolidWorks design of the body, the 2013 “Colossus” HPV will be much more aerodynamic than last year’s “Kronos.” SolidWorks 3D CAD and Analysis software allowed the team to design the HPV and analyze airflow before the physical model was built.

This year, the mold was built using Precision Board Plus PBLT-10 and was CNC machined by .

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After they received the machined Precision Board mold, the team members coated it with 5 coats of a Minwax fast-drying polyester sealer. A Duratec high gloss sealer, followed by an Orange Tooling Gelcoat application finalized the molds. After the molds were ready, the fairings were layed-up using a wet layup and vacuum bag method. Once curing was complete, two picture-perfect Carbon Fiber body halves were ready to be seamed together prior to mounting onto the frame.

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Currently, there is much fine tuning being done before the April 12th unveiling of “Colossus” at the NASA Ames Research Center’s Moffett Field. Landing gear (which automatically deploys at the finish of each race), headlights, turn signals and more must be added before the HPV is complete. Check out the Missouri S & T’s Facebook page for more info and updates as the race date inches closer.

Also, be sure to check back here for our after-race update!

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