Coastal Enterprises finds Opportunities amid Coronavirus Pandemic

Coastal Enterprises, Manufacturers of Precision Board HDU, was recently featured in the pages of Composites World, a leading magazine in the composites and tooling industry.  They talked to Chip Going, Sales Manager, and Tai Freligh, Marketing Manager, about how the company’s U.S.-integrated supply chain and custom services have helped them to overcome situational challenges for their customers.  Read some excerpts below and then head over to their website for the full article.

composites world

Here are some quotes from the article:

“The positive side of it is that through adversity, oftentimes, it’s the fuel we need to find a better way,” says Chip Going, sales manager for Coastal Enterprises. Going uses the word “nimble” to describe the company’s adaptability over the past few months. Coastal Enterprises’ relatively small size and private ownership, for example, have allowed it to quickly make high-level decisions, from adding new densities to its product lineup, to adding more custom bonding and cutting services, to slipping new, accelerated projects into the schedule. “Right now, things are changing so fast that for us to be able to react to people’s needs in real time is a huge advantage for us,” Going adds.

“You hear the word ‘pivot’ a lot,” adds Tai Freligh, marketing manager at Coastal Enterprises. “That’s another opportunity for us. I think people are discovering just how versatile Precision Board is.” For example, the company has seen several of its customers pivot their usual manufacturing capabilities to help alleviate shortages in personal protective equipment (PPE), or to build products to help with social distancing such as sanitized wall panels or partitions.

composites world

If you want to read the entire article, you can find it at the Composites World website HERE.  You can also check out our Composites World page here on the website for previous articles in the magazine over the past few years.

Coastal Enterprises is a 30-year old privately-owned company, located in California.  Our manufacturing producst and processes are fully integrated in the United States, which has allowed us to avoid supply chain disruptions and maintain unparalleled market stability. For thirty years we have manufactured Precision Board, a high-density urethane tooling board used in many different applications including composite tooling, prototyping, thermoform tooling, pattern making, theming, dimensional signage and more. It is currently being used in many essential industries including aerospace, defense, transportation, energy and healthcare. You can get pricingfree samplessign up for newsletters or contact us.

National Composites Week – Soft Tooling and Composites

National Composites Week is designed to introduce young people and others in the community to the composites industry, the career opportunities available, and demonstrate the contributions composites make to the local, national and global economy.  Coastal Enterprises manufactures Precision Board, a high-density urethane tooling board used extensively in composites, including industries like aerospace, automotive and marine and in a variety of applications including molds and prototypes. 

We’ll be sharing various ways that Coastal supports composites throughout the week.

Today’s Topic: What is soft tooling and how has it changed the composites industry?

Soft tooling (like Precision Board urethane) over hard tooling (metals like steel, aluminum and invar) has made a huge difference when it comes to short production runs and has given the industry greater flexibility when it comes to design changes and cost savings in terms of time and labor.  The change from hard tooling to soft tooling was a long time coming, but it’s already made an impact on the composites industry and Coastal Enterprises has been there since the beginning.

national composites week

The Transition from Hard Tooling to Soft Tooling

Formerly a composites engineer at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works (Palmdale, Calif.), Jon Sharp is a legendary air racer.  While many of the projects Jon was involved in at Lockheed are still classified, he was heavily involved in the now-declassified Lockheed Martin/Boeing RQ-3 Darkstar UAV program. An early precursor to modern day UAV’s, Darkstar was designed as a high-altitude endurance UAV with stealth technology. This project, with Jon’s leadership and dedicated team, was the first time high density polyurethane was used for tooling on a government contract job, a pioneering move that allowed Sharp and his team to complete their project on time and on budget. It helped to pave the way for the large amount of high-density urethane tooling board seen today in the aerospace and composites industries.

Jon shared his thoughts on what it meant to switch from the time-consuming tooling methods they were accustomed to, to the lighter, more nimble high density urethane:

“90{afbea94bd31582343c3017644f03ec8d7d8fa2386ecb82c250661e06c0c6e111} of the tooling for Darkstar was made from 10lb and 20lb. HDU. It would have cost us roughly 30 times that amount to do the tooling with metal. Not only that, as soon as we discovered the numerous options we had for block configuration and sheet size, we never went back to bonding up railroad-tie size pieces of wood or buying chunks of metal like we did in the past,” he said.

“If you make the decision to buy metal tooling, you’re constrained by a lot of factors — higher cost, size and weight and overall lead time for the tool build,” says Coastal Enterprises president Chuck Miller. “High-density urethane foam offers much more flexibility and speed, and the coefficient of thermal expansion can be easily compensated for.”

Customization options, allowing for easier accommodation of design changes, also played a large role in high density polyurethane winning the hearts and minds of the aerospace tooling industry.

Sharp went on to say,

“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.” says Sharp. “The bottom line is, once high density urethane became available, we weren’t about to spend millions of dollars on tooling for a prototype, especially one that could be of limited life! The quality, consistency, and block configuration options of Precision Board cut labor time and cost down so drastically that we didn’t want to use anything else!”

The Benefits of Soft Tooling

To summarize, the advantages of using soft tooling are as follows:

  1. Shorter Machining Time
  2. Less Wear on Your Machine
  3. Lighter Weight
  4. Easily Accommodates Design Changes
  5. Lower Overall Project Cost
  6. Shorter Overall Tool Production Time

Additionally, Coastal Enterprises offers services you can’t get elsewhere.  For instance, we can fabricate custom-bonded blocks and layup tool from Precision Board soft tooling, something that can’t be done with hard tooling.  Our team can assemble complex step tools of any size, any thickness, and any density.  Coastal’s bonded blocks have near imperceptible bond lines and are delivered in near-net shape, ready for machining immediately.

In tomorrow’s post we will address the many benefits of using Precision Board urethane tooling board from Coastal Enterprises and why many in the aerospace industry are relying more on soft tooling materials, like Precision Board.

National Composites Week Schedule

Monday- Coastal’s School Donation Program
Tuesday- What is soft tooling and how has it changed the composites industry?
Wednesday- The benefits of Precision Board over other tooling boards
Thursday- The creation and benefits of Precision Board step-tools
Friday- Coastal’s long history and roots in the space program

A group of composites industry leaders has announced the creation and launch of the inaugural National Composites Week, Aug. 26-30, 2019. The goal of National Composites Week is to encourage manufacturers from throughout the composites manufacturing supply chain — raw material suppliers, convertors, designers, toolmakers, fabricators, educators, students — to celebrate and bring attention to the myriad ways that composite materials and composites manufacturing contribute to the products and structures that shape the American manufacturing landscape today.  More information is available HERE

National Composites Week was organized and launched by braiding specialist A&P Technology, global advanced composites company Hexcel and media partner CompositesWorld magazine.

Coastal Enterprises manufactures Precision Board, a versatile, cost-effective and eco-friendly urethane material used extensively in the tooling industry.  It is a closed-cell, rigid, dimensionally-stable substrate that is ideal for use in a number of different tooling applications.

Request free samplesget a quote or sign up for weekly e-blasts packed with helpful information.

National Composites Week – Coastal’s School Donation Program

National Composites Week is designed to introduce young people and others in the community to the composites industry, the career opportunities available, and demonstrate the contributions composites make to the local, national and global economy.  Coastal Enterprises manufactures Precision Board, a high-density urethane tooling board used extensively in composites, including industries like aerospace, automotive and marine and in a variety of applications including molds and prototypes. 

We’ll be sharing various ways that Coastal supports composites throughout the week.

Today’s Topic: Coastal’s School Donation Program

Coastal Enterprises is proud to host a school donation program that supports university projects like FSAE cars, concrete canoes, human-powered vehicles, submarines and more.  For young engineering students, taking a project from concept to completion is an excellent learning tool. It pushes students to be involved with every level of the production process, giving them a thorough look into the challenges of a professional engineering project.

national composites week

Here at Coastal Enterprises, we place a lot of importance on the future of composite materials. Space travel, aeronautics, construction, and many other industries depend on the advancement of different composites technologies, and we want to see them flourish in the coming years. The next generation of composites professionals are currently enrolled in engineering, architecture, and design programs in schools all over the country, which is why we do everything we can to support students. We offer Precision Board donations to any school, and we welcome the opportunity to sponsor as many schools as we can.

national composites week

The majority of our donations go to university teams competing in events like Formula SAE, ASME Human Powered Vehicle Competition, and North American Solar Challenge. Members of these student teams are required to design a vehicle, source the materials, fabricate and assemble the vehicle components, and finally race their creations at an annual competition.

You can find out more information about our school donation program by clicking HERE.

National Composites Week Schedule

Monday- Coastal’s School Donation Program
Tuesday- What is soft tooling and how has it changed the composites industry?
Wednesday- The benefits of Precision Board over other tooling boards
Thursday- The creation and benefits of Precision Board step-tools
Friday- Coastal’s long history and roots in the space program

A group of composites industry leaders has announced the creation and launch of the inaugural National Composites Week, Aug. 26-30, 2019. The goal of National Composites Week is to encourage manufacturers from throughout the composites manufacturing supply chain — raw material suppliers, convertors, designers, toolmakers, fabricators, educators, students — to celebrate and bring attention to the myriad ways that composite materials and composites manufacturing contribute to the products and structures that shape the American manufacturing landscape today.  More information is available HERE

National Composites Week was organized and launched by braiding specialist A&P Technology, global advanced composites company Hexcel and media partner CompositesWorld magazine.

Coastal Enterprises manufactures Precision Board, a versatile, cost-effective and eco-friendly urethane material used extensively in the tooling industry.  It is a closed-cell, rigid, dimensionally-stable substrate that is ideal for use in a number of different tooling applications.

Request free samplesget a quote or sign up for weekly e-blasts packed with helpful information.

Chuck Miller Featured on Composites World Podcast

Chuck Miller, President of Coastal Enterprises, manufacturers of Precision Board HDU, was recently featured on the Composites World podcast. He discussed his background and involvement with the evolving world of composites and tooling from his time as a Manufacturing Engineer on the Saturn S-II, the second stage of the Saturn V Moon Launch Vehicle (fabricated by North American Aviation in Seal Beach, CA) through the founding of his company, Coastal Enterprises, and into what the future may hold for composites.

chuck miller

Chuck Miller, founder and president of tooling board manufacturer Coastal Enterprises, details tooling board technology and how it continues to evolve. 

Listen to the podcast on the Composites World website HERE or find it on iTunes and Google Play.

CW Talks: The Composites Podcast is a biweekly podcast that highlights the people and technologies shaping the world of composites. Interviews feature guests with expertise and insight about where composites have been and where they are headed.

CompositesWorld is a business-to-business media brand that produces a monthly print magazine, digital media, research and live events for the global composites market. The CompositesWorld editorial team and expert contributors produce information on new product technology, operational best practices, market intelligence and industry news.

Check out some photos from Chuck’s time on the Saturn program as well as some photos from the early HDU tooling board work he was involved with in the aerospace industry.

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”2″ gal_title=”Chucks NASA Photos”]

UPDATE: Check out the blog post that Composites World did on the podcast!

Coastal Enterprises is a privately held company founded in 1973 by Mr. Chuck Miller, President, after his participation in the Saturn S-II Space Program at Rockwell International. The Saturn Launch Vehicle used polyurethane foam as its exterior fuel tank insulator, and it was at this time that his experience with this unique material began.

Products manufactured by Coastal Enterprises and sold internationally since 1973 were primarily for the machining industry. They were high density urethane blocks used to “proof” computer programs on numerically controlled milling machines. Ease in machining and lower cost made urethane the preferred choice over proofing on the actual steel used for the part being machined.

Initial development of Precision Board began in early 1989. By redesigning the chemical formulation and manufacturing methods of our machining product, Coastal Enterprises developed Precision Board Plus fabrication material with physical characteristics to meet the rigorous demands of an artist’s creation and the machining standards of today’s 5 axis milling machines alike.

You can get free samples, request a quote and find technical data and information sheets at PrecisionBoard.com.