Building the Synergy Sign 2019 Sign Invitational Piece

Coastal Enterprises, manufacturers of Precision Board HDU, is proud to host guest blogs written by some of the signage industry’s biggest movers and shakers, posted to the Precision Board Blog. This guest blog is written by Jim Dawson with Synergy Sign & Graphics, based in Strasburg, Ohio. Jim shows us how he fabricated their 2019 Sign Invitational entry from three densities of Precision Board polyurethane and steel as well as surface texturing using Smooth-On products and Coastal Enterprises’ own TSF-45.

In Jim Dawson’s own words…

In usual form, the 2019 version of The Sign Invitational snuck up on us this year. Sometimes I feel like I work better under pressure, and sometimes I just flat out procrastinate to a fault. That being said, I think I hammered out a pretty amazing piece considering the time constraints I imposed on myself.

This year’s Sign Invitational theme was time, so I chose to build a whimsical elven clock that ran on pure magic. Unfortunately, before the elves could finish, the trolls got involved and tainted the magic forcing the clock to run backwards therefor throwing the whole elven world into utter chaos. In an attempt to ward off any further threats from the trolls, the elves built a beautiful golden owl to perch on top of the clock tower. Everyone knows that trolls despise two things more than anything; gold and owls.

We started the build as a top down kind of build. Any good building has the top built first! That allows you to figure out how much foundation it will need. Start up high and work down to the ground with true elven magic. The owl was a true all-encompassing piece for us. We carved the front of the owl using our Multicam 3000 series router. It was carved from 3″ thick 18lb Precision Board from Coastal Enterprises. Carving 3″ foam is no joke, so we left the heavy lifting to our X-Edge Tools XCT518 ball end mill. Once the from was carved we build up the thickness with two additional 2″ layers and embedded a steel frame inside the owl. Feather work was all hand laid and sculpted by myself and my good friend David Brent.

Once the owl was complete, I turned my attention to the steel frame for the entire piece. This year we used the Multicam V series plasma to flat cut almost the entire frame. It made quick work of all the steel structure that was almost entirely covered up in the final piece.

After the steel was assembled I began to model all of the various panels that would clad the structure. EnRoute Pro was used to model and tool path the panels. We carved 8 panels in all with various Celtic weaves and knots along with a very rare elven wood grain pattern which was entrusted to us by the head elf himself. Once again, all of the magical panels were carved from Precision Board, but the 30lb variety for added durability.

The motorized gears on the sides of the clock were carved from Coastal Enterprises PBLT-60, which is about as dense as concrete. It was amazing to watch the abuse they took running 10 hours a day for 3 days. They still show no wear at all. It could be a little more of that elven magic as well, but I prefer to think they have engineered a superior product.

Once we arrived in Las Vegas, it was apparent that the elven magic we used on the clock had worked on the crowds. We enjoyed some of the largest crowds we have seen at the Sign Invitational thanks to a great move to the Signs Of The Times booth. After 3 days of voting, and over 1500 votes, my friend and mentor Dan Sawatzky narrowly edged me out in the large sign category. Mo Flint took the honors in the small category with his amazingly-detailed Time Pirates piece.

We are already gearing up for next year. Give us a shout if you would like to compete!

Materials and Software:

Coastal Enterprises – PBLT 18, 30, and 60. TSF 45.

Smooth-On– Freeform Sculpt. Freeform Habitat. Smooth Cast 325.

SAi Enroute Pro 6.0, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop

Multicam 3000 Series Router

X-Edge Tools XCT518 Ball End Mill

We think that Jim Dawson and his team do some really excellent work. Synergy Sign & Graphics has a highly experienced staff whose backgrounds include graphic design, marketing, trade-show design, print media, branding, point of purchase design, fulfillment, and more. Check out their website or give them a call at (330) 878-7646 to see about your next project!

Coastal Enterprises offers free samples of Precision Board HDU. Already have a project in mind for our material? Request a quote and get started today. Sign up for our monthly blog roundup so you don’t miss any of our informative blogs. Have a special project fabricated with Precision Board HDU and want to know if it could be featured in a blog on our website? Give us a call at 800-845-0745 or drop us an email with details. We’d love to hear from you!

Payette Prototyping Architectural Designs with Precision Board

Boston-based architecture firm Payette leverages their in-house fabrication capabilities to build mock-ups and models as part of their design process. PBLT-15 Precision Board HDU is a staple in their material inventory for CNC-machining, used for everything from topographical models to full-scale façade studies.

“Models and prototypes help all parties understand the problem and have a voice in its resolution,” says Parke MacDowell, Fabrication Manager at Payette. “This is an incredibly powerful way to facilitate decision-making.”

MacDowell values Precision Board for its easy-machining and low environmental impact. “As designers, our quality standards are incredibly high; Precision Board helps us to achieve those standards efficiently. Furthermore, the properties of the material make for fast, tidy machining and a comfortable work environment at the shop.”

Some of the more complex prototypes Payette has recently explored include flip-milled acoustical panels. These test-pieces benefit from Precision Board being available in different thicknesses, eliminating the need for labor-intensive glue-laminating. The studies are based on principals of acoustical diffusion, using faceted geometry to manage noisy environments by scattering sound waves, which reduces sound intensity.

From a blog Parke wrote last year on this project:

Sound privacy and noise level are among the qualities occupants are least satisfied with in existing buildings. More shocking than this is the relative lack of research into aural comfort compared to related topics like visual and thermal comfort. With this in mind, we decided to use our existing FabLab space with its very noisy CNC Router as a testing ground to develop tools and strategies applicable to the larger practice of architecture for addressing aural comfort.

These physical studies expand on past CNC tests and digital simulations. The new geometries push the limits of our fabrication capabilities and test out some novel machining approaches. We set specific goals and restrictions on the project to ensure our results would be relevant and applicable to the architectural typologies on which our firm focuses – i.e. Science and Healthcare. We set criteria that our solution be build-able and made from durable and cleanable materials. We also took this as an opportunity to develop digital tools to assist in the design and assessment of our studies resulting in grasshopper logics, fabrication techniques and verification algorithm being developed.

Over the past few months, we’ve been developing a new iteration of acoustical mock-ups, building on our previous physical studies and digital simulations. In the video above, we’re flip-milling (cutting both sides of the material) 6″ thick high-density foam (Ed note: PBLT-15 Precision Board HDU). After cutting the back-side, this time lapse shows us milling the front, with custom surfacing tool paths in evidence. Careful planning and alignments were needed to achieve the slit apertures that you see here.

Payette’s work on healthcare and laboratory projects drove the research agenda. MacDowell explains: “These intensive-use programs require durable, easy-to-maintain surface materials. Materials that satisfy these needs tend to reflect sound rather than absorbing it, which results in environments with harsh and noisy acoustics. We’re trying to improve acoustical performance while maintaining requisite material properties by using geometry to break-up the sound.”

ABOUT PAYETTE
Payette is a leading architectural design firm whose practice focuses on technologically and programmatically complex buildings for scientific research, higher education, healthcare, and corporate research clients. For more than three quarters of a century, Payette has practiced innovation in these highly technical buildings while developing a culture based on deep readings of program as one of the essential subtexts of architecture. This thorough understanding of how hospitals and laboratories work has helped clients transcend function to transform places and improve people’s lives. For more information, please visit their website or give them a call at 617-895-1000.

ABOUT COASTAL ENTERPRISES
Coastal Enterprises manufactures Precision Board HDU, a versatile, cost-effective and eco-friendly urethane material used extensively in the tooling industry. It is a closed-cell rigid substrate that does not rot, warp or crack. You can request free samples, get a quote or sign up for periodic newsletters packed with helpful information.

Hazelnut Inn Sign – A Mix of Materials and Techniques

Coastal Enterprises, manufacturers of Precision Board HDU, is proud to host guest blogs written by some of the signage industry’s biggest movers and shakers, posted to the Precision Board Blog. This guest blog is written by Dan Sawatzky with Imagination Corporation in Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada. This month, Dan is showing us how he used a variety of materials, including Precision Board, and different techniques to fabricate the main sign for the Hazelnut Inn. He also talks a bit about how the design changed during the building process and why.

In Dan Sawatzky’s own words…

They say your own sign is the hardest to design and fabricate. It’s true. It took multiple tries before we were satisfied with the design for the Hazelnut Inn. I purposely didn’t worry about colour at this point for I knew things would change as we went. The only thing we were sure about was that the lettering would be 23K gold and the letters would be prismatic.

In the end we settled on shades of brown for the backgrounds. The leaves would be made of plasma cut sheet steel. There were more than a thousand of them in all. I kept adding until it looked perfect. The dished oval background was cut from a piece of 4” thick PBLT-30 Precision Board HDU. A stylized leaf pattern was routed into the background.

The tree trunk and branches as well as the small rocks below were hand sculpted using sculpting epoxy over a metal armature.

We sprayed the leaves with a mild acid to encourage a rusty patina. Once it had fully developed we lightly sanded it and then clear coated the leaves. The tree trunk and backgrounds were hand painted with acrylic paints.

A base for the sign was welded up over a sturdy block foundation and concrete footer. Metal lath was then attached to the armature in preparation for the hand sculpted concrete.

We then troweled on a thick coat of fiberglass-reinforced concrete and allowed it to partially cure. This was then hand-sculpted to look like brick and rock. In keeping with the Inn story, it couldn’t be perfectly straight and level. Instead, the lines were playful and fun. The two metal brackets are to attach the lettering once the dirty work was complete.

Once the sculpted concrete work had cured, the painting process began, first with base coats and then a series of glazes to bring out the textures. The colours, textures and simulated materials perfectly matched the architecture of the Hazelnut Inn around it.

As we worked up the colours we also changed the colours on the background and tree of the sign to make every element work together. As soon as the rest of the work is complete on the retaining walls we will begin the landscape. You can bet we will pay just as much attention to detail to ensure everything goes together flawlessly.

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 samples, get a quote or sign up for periodic newsletters packed with helpful information.

Sandblasted Precision Board HDU City Signs

Kendal Signs has fabricated about fifteen signs for the City of Cocoa, Florida over the last several years. What originally started as cedar signs are now being replaced with Precision Board HDU after the harsh Florida weather damaged them. In this blog, Anna Johnson with Kendal Signs talks us through routing and sandblasting PBLT-15 Precision Board HDU and then attaching aluminum to the back for support due to the large size of the signs.

Anna used 1 ½” thick 15lb Precision Board to create two signs for the City of Cocoa. Kendal Signs designed the original signs for the city using cedar planks per the client’s request.

“It has been a few years since those signs were installed and they have been damaged by hurricanes and the harsh Florida climate, so we are replacing the wood signs with HDU,” says Johnson. She adds, “with Precision Board, you don’t have to worry about rotting.”

With the dimensions on the two signs being 5’10” wide by 7’6” tall and requiring multiple pieces of material, they had to be glued together and backed with .125 aluminum for added support. Additionally, the overall sign is 17’ above grade.

Anna tells us, “we used an expanding urethane adhesive for the seam and clamped the pieces together.” She adds, “the aluminum was then epoxied onto the back of the sign.”

Powder coated metal poles were specced because of the weather and the material’s ability to keep moisture out of the sign. Z-brackets were put on the back and U-bolts installed onto the back of the sign. They then mounted the sign to the poles.

The signs were then masked off for sandblasting followed by a topcoat of Mathews Paint.

“We used a sandblast mask and applied it to the HDU,” Johnson says. “Then we put a wire grate over it to give it a wood grain look.”

They operated the sandblasting machine at 80 psi and took about 5-10 minutes per sign.

Anna likes using Precision Board HDU because she can get a nice finish on it and doesn’t have to deal with weather-related issues like rotting or warping. “It’s not like some boards that are more porous and chip away. It’s cleaner.” She adds, “the quality is better, so it makes for a nice clean product.”

She offers this advice for working with HDU.

“Make sure the material is primed and prepped so you get a clean and smooth finish.”

In January of 1996 Kendal opened a small sign shop in Rockledge, FL and today has become a leader in the industry. Kendal Signs is now Brevard’s largest sign shop with an account portfolio that spans across the country. In addition to fabrication and installation, they service and maintain all types of signs, including electronic message centers. Tackling a job from start to finish gives them an edge over the competition. Kendal Signs is pleased to be a full service, state certified contractor, and a MET Labs Approved and Inspected Sign Manufacturer. You can call them at 321-636-5116 or visit their website.

Kendal Signs has recently purchased Daniel’s Wholesale Sign Superstore to help meet the signage demand industry-wide. Sign companies now have the ability to order signs online through their website.

Laser-Engraving Faux Wood into Precision Board HDU

A customer contacted us wondering if they could create a faux wood pattern on Precision Board HDU using their laser system. They did not own a CNC and were trying to get a competitive advantage with what they had in house for equipment. We reached out to our friends at Trotec Laser and asked them to have a go at creating a woodgrain look on Precision Board HDU using a laser…and the results are amazing! Check out the photos and videos below and read more about how they did it.

The first step that needed to be tackled was finding woodgrain patterns to program the software with. Cameron Youngblood, Senior Marketing Specialist with Trotec Laser, searched online to find a collection of woodgrain patterns.

“Finding a high quality image is key to achieving an ideal and realistic end result. We found a few different free images that didn’t require a lot of editing or manipulation in our graphics software,” she says. “There are a couple of different approaches you can take to alter the image into a laser-ready graphic, and some of these approaches are dependent on the image itself. For example, finding an image that has multiple shades of blacks and grays may engrave better as a grayscale image.”

Cameron says more laser engraving power will be applied with the black areas and the power will decrease as you get into the various shades of gray- any white areas on the graphic will not be engraved. The more laser power is applied, the deeper the engraving area will be.

She cautions that it might take the user a little time to test out the settings, but as long as you can get a good image, it’s definitely possible to program your laser system to engrave a faux wood pattern into Precision Board HDU.

“Since the images we tested were black and white, we opted to use the color mapping option in our JobControl® laser software,” Youngblood said. “Color mapping allows you to assign different actions to each area of your graphic, as well as indicate the order in which each action should take place. In this instance, we used a total of three colors: one color for the deepest engraving, another color for the lighter engraving, and the third color for completely cutting through the material. This allowed us to achieve our preferred contrast between the two different engraving depths.”

Trotec Laser used their Speedy 400 120W CO2 laser on samples of PBLT-15 Precision Board HDU to get a faux wood look.

Here’s the settings info:

Engraving (first color) = 90{afbea94bd31582343c3017644f03ec8d7d8fa2386ecb82c250661e06c0c6e111} power, 60{afbea94bd31582343c3017644f03ec8d7d8fa2386ecb82c250661e06c0c6e111} speed, 1000 PPI
Engraving (second color) = 30{afbea94bd31582343c3017644f03ec8d7d8fa2386ecb82c250661e06c0c6e111} power, 100{afbea94bd31582343c3017644f03ec8d7d8fa2386ecb82c250661e06c0c6e111} speed, 500 PPI
Cutting (third color) = 100{afbea94bd31582343c3017644f03ec8d7d8fa2386ecb82c250661e06c0c6e111} power, 5.2{afbea94bd31582343c3017644f03ec8d7d8fa2386ecb82c250661e06c0c6e111} speed, 2000 Hz

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and while our material database contains recommended settings for almost every type of material, the user may prefer to alter those settings to their own liking,” she adds.

There are quite a few benefits to using a laser system to create dimensional signage.

Smaller vacuum system for smoke removal
No need for dust collector
Smaller-sized machines takes up less shop space
Effluent/smoke coming off Precision Board HDU is NOT toxic (see more info below)
Generally lower price point for machines

You may be wondering if the smoke that comes off Precision Board HDU from laser-cutting is harmful or toxic. It’s not. We wanted to ensure that the effluent byproducts of Precision Board did not exceed OSHA’s Permissible Exposure Limits (PEL), federal regulations that dictate safe chemical exposure levels, so we had Universal Laser Systems test several densities of our material. Universal Laser Systems used a sophisticated RTGA Mass Spectrometer and a carbon monoxide detector to monitor the levels of effluent at all times during testing. They noted the following in their report: “The concentration of the detected compounds did not exceed their respective OSHA PEL at any level of filtration during this study.” You can read more about the testing HERE.

Find out more by watching the videos on our YouTube Channel showing different woodgrain patterns being laser-engraved onto our PBLT-20 and PBLT-30 densities of Precision Board HDU.

You may also be considering using a laser to create a sandblasted sign look without actually sandblasting it. Creating a sign this way could potentially mean that you wouldn’t have to worry about:

Strict environmental regulations around sandblasting
The use of a grain frame
Using a blast mask to designate where sand should and should not hit the substrate
Wearing a suit or helmet to protect against sand particle ricochets
Purchasing a system to filter sand particles out of the air

Check out our resource page to read more about Laser-Engraving of Precision Board HDU, including our toxicity testing (Precision Board is non-toxic), as well as more videos and settings information for cutting or engraving Precision Board HDU.

You can request free samples and try creating a faux wood look on our HDU! For technical questions on the use of lasers, please contact Trotec via the website link below.

Trotec Laser is a leading international provider of advanced, high-speed laser equipment for cutting, engraving and industrial marking, and a wide selection of engraving supplies. Trotec was originally founded in Wels, Austria in 1997 and established in the United States in Mississippi in 2002. Now headquartered in Plymouth, Michigan, the U.S. business has grown to 10 times its original size.

Building the Synergy Sign 2019 Sign Invitational Piece

Payette Prototyping Architectural Designs with Precision Board

Hazelnut Inn Sign – A Mix of Materials and Techniques

Sandblasted Precision Board HDU City Signs

Laser-Engraving Faux Wood into Precision Board HDU

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