Coastal Enterprises was on hand exhibiting at this year’s Composites and Advanced Materials Expo (CAMX), held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California.  We talked to a lot of people who had great questions about using Precision Board urethane tooling board for their upcoming projects.  Here’s a wrap up of our time at the trade show, including some trends and top questions, and a shout out to our distributors who were on hand at the show.

We have some fun real-life examples of how our urethane tooling board material is used in the composites industry, including this master mold for a wing flap fabricated from our PBLT-15 Precision Board.  It shows the various stages of the mold making process, from rough machining to finish machining and then coating with Duratec Primer.  The photo on the right shows the final finished wing flap.

We had plenty of samples on hand of various densities of Precision Board in both our low-temp PBLT (<200ºF) and our high-temp PBHT (<300ºF).  Coastal Enterprises now offers 16 densities, ranging from 4lb up to 75lb.  Our brand new density is PBLT-25/PBHT-25.

This year at CAMX we were lucky enough to have a sample on hand of a boat hull prototype made from Precision Board urethane tooling board.  The entire surface is coated with Duratec Primer and then sanded and wet sanded and partially covered in high-gloss Top Coat on one half to show the different coating options (seen in the photo on the far right).  You can really tell the difference between the two halves when viewing this sample piece in person.  Coastal Enterprises is proud to partner with Hawkeye Industries, manufacturer of Duratec coatings.

Several members of our distributor network were also on hand at the show exhibiting, including Composites One, Northern Composites, Professional Plastics, Plastics Materials Inc. and RevChem Composites.  All of these distributors carry Precision Board urethane tooling board and can be contacted with questions about pricing and availability.

Some of our manufacturing team went down to the CAMX show to check out the latest happenings in composites and advanced materials.  They were particularly fond of the Predator replica in the RevChem Composites booth.  Made using various urethane materials provided by RevChem, this statue is an example of the work they do within the film and television industry for prop-making.

Trends at CAMX

Soft Tooling: With tighter timelines and deeper exploration into ways to process composite materials, soft tooling is becoming more popular than ever.  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.  Interested to learn more about how Precision Board can fit into your soft tooling needs?  Call our knowledgeable sales staff with your technical questions, get a quote or learn more about how our custom-bonded layup tools can save you time and money.

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

Advanced Composites: Coastal Enterprises distributor Composites One was on hand as a member of the Closed Molds Alliance (comprised of three industry experts: Composites One, Magnum Venus Products, and RTM North Technologies).  They were talking about closed molding versus open molding.  More and more manufacturers are making the switch and Precision Board should be in the mix when considering your options. The conversion to closed molding is the practical solution for ensuring competitiveness and long-term growth. Changing from open to closed molding can offer many benefits, including:

• Reduced waste and emissions, which leads to a cleaner, healthier environment as well as lower material and disposal costs.
• A more consistent, repeatable process, which makes composites more competitive than alternative materials.
• Reduced cycle times, which leads to higher productivity and lower labor costs.

With a range of density options up to 75 pcf and a high-temp option (continuous temperatures up to 300ºF), Precision Board urethane tooling board is a great choice for use in advanced composites applications.  Give us a call to find out more.

Questions at CAMX

One-off Tooling Vs Production Tooling: Many questions about production style tooling were asked this year.  People wanted to know if Precision Board could be used for short run one-off tooling or production style tooling.  It absolutely can!  Coastal offers sixteen densities of Precision Board urethane tooling board with the higher-end densities (75 pcf on the high end) more suited for production style tooling.

Why Coastal: As people explore all their options for tooling, they oftentimes want to know why they should go with Precision Board urethane tooling board over other tooling boards.  We’re happy to answer the question as we offer the most options and flexibility of any tooling board company in the market.

When you go with Precision Board, you get the Coastal Advantage:

• 16 densities of Precision Board in high-temp and low-temp.
• 8 sheet sizes ranging from 20″x60″ to 5’x10′.
• Thickness ranging from 1/2″ to 24″ in ANY increment.
• Fast turnaround of DAYS not weeks.
• Custom-bonding of step-tools and blocks.
• Free technical support.
• Distributor network.
• Protective packaging of your order.

We’ll be baaaack next year in Florida for CAMX 2020 and hope to see you there!

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.

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