In addition to manufacturing the largest and thickest sheets in the tooling industry, Coastal Enterprises also offers an additional service to our customers: custom-bonded Precision Board tooling blocks.
“Some of the layup tools we made at Skunk Works were absolutely massive, which meant CNC time was a major factor when determining project deadlines. Coastal’s custom bonded blocks saved us hours on the CNC and ensured we stayed on time and on budget – they are the true gold standard in tooling efficiency.”
– Jon Sharp, former Lockheed Martin employee and air racing legend, on why custom bonded blocks were their go-to choice for large tooling jobs.
Advantages of custom tooling blocks:
- Save money by using less material
- Decrease machining time by being closer to net size from the start
- Arrives ready for immediate machining
With only a rough drawing of your finished part, we will fabricate a custom block that will significantly reduce waste, bonding/laminating time, and reduce time spent machining.
Save machining time and material cost
By layering the sheets of Precision Board Plus PBLT-40 with just enough excess to accommodate the customers tool design, we saved them hours of machining time. Think of how long it would take to CNC machine a solid block down to this shape! Also think of the cost savings on tooling board. Call us at: (800) 845-0745 with questions on your project!
This custom block is made out of Precision
Board Plus PBLT-10, and was machined into a mold to create one of the three composite body sections for the landspeed record-holding Speed Demon race car (see full article here), operated by George Poteet and Ron Main. In addition to buying less material, they also saved money by eliminating the plug process.
A pioneer in the use of soft tooling, Jon Sharp shared his opinion on the advantages of custom-bonded tooling blocks with us in our previous article featuring him and his time at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works.
“Another major reason we were so drawn to HDU for tooling was the greater level of design flexibility that was suddenly available. We used to order our blocks several inches thicker than we needed them, which made the inevitable design changes much less of a headache. Could we have done that with metal? Absolutely not, we would have had to start all over again.”
-Jon Sharp
Whether its a composite layup tool, full-scale model, prototype, sculpture or other project – our custom tooling blocks will help keep you competitive, on schedule and on budget! Please contact us for additional information, or visit our Custom Tooling Blocks webpage.
