With a motto of “Helping you leave your mark on the world,” Orange, CA sign shop Insignia was well suited to tackle the massive 3-D globe project proposed to them by DOW Chemical.
DOW requested the globe be lightweight enough for customers to lift, which was no problem for the creative minds at Insignia. According to owner Joseph Westbrook, “We worked pretty closely with DOW to make a lightweight sculpture for their trade show exhibit. Because it needed to be so light, we decided to use Precision Board Plus PBLT-6, which is lightweight, but would still allow us to retain a high degree of durability.”
With the concept completed, the next step was blueprinting the design and planning the most efficient assembly build process. “The most challenging part of this project was figuring out how we were going to cut and assemble it as a whole,” states Westbrook. “Through collaboration with Dan Sawatzky of Imagination Corporation, we ultimately decided to CNC rout the Precision Board in many different sections – 16 to be exact – which took a lot of time. Our CNC router ran day and night to get all the pieces cut.”
With so many pieces to assemble, putting the project together was a little like a game of Tetris. “We used Coastal’s PB Bond-240 adhesive to put together the different pieces of the globe. After we assembled the entire thing, we used a combination of FSC-88WB Primer/Filler and FSC-360WB HDU Filler to fill in the joints where it came together.”
After painting the entire project with 1Shot Paint, it was ready for delivery to DOW. As this picture shows, the goal of making the project light enough to lift was a success – through the use of a hollow globe, the globe weighs only 50 lbs.!
Additional information about Insignia and other creative ventures they have tackled can be seen at: www.leavingyourmark.com.