Vala’s Pumpkin Patch Gets Harvest-Themed Signage

Coastal Enterprises, manufacturers of Precision Board HDU, is proud to announce a series of guest blogs written by Dan Sawatzky of Imagination Corporation, which will be posted on the Precision Board Blog each month. This month Dan Sawatzky shows us how he works with one of the most successful agri-tourism farms in the world; Vala’s Pumpkin Patch, to create branded signs with a fall harvest theme and ensure that customers have plenty of photo-worthy moments at the farm while also enjoying the myriad of on-site attractions and restaurants.

In Dan’s own words…

We don’t do many Halloween celebration projects in our shop as our projects tend to be of a much more permanent nature. But we do have a great customer that has a fall festival that includes some Halloween attractions. Vala’s Pumpkin Patch in Gretna, Nebraska is one of the largest and most successful agri-tourism farms in the world. Each fall, over a period of about six weeks, they welcome more than 300,000 guests to their farm. It’s an incredible seasonal operation with more than fifty attractions and eating establishments. The family run farm has been in operation for thirty-five years.

We met the owners last fall and they asked us to design and build a number of signs for their farm. I visited the farm this last spring to get to know them and the operation. Over the next few months we built six large signs using PBLT-30 Precision Board HDU along with our other favoured mediums including steel, fibreglass-reinforced concrete and sculpting epoxy.

Vala’s Pumpkin Patch

This year’s projects were enough to fill a fifty-four foot semi-trailer. Once the signs were securely loaded (with inches of space to spare) and on their way, I jumped on a plane to be there to open the truck doors and help them unload and place the signs around the farm. The signs were a huge hit to say the least.

Vala’s Pumpkin Patch

Vala’s Pumpkin Patch

A few weeks ago I was pleased to return to the Vala’s Pumpkin Patch for four days while the farm was in full operation. My job was to observe the farm and then help them decide the projects we would tackle next year. We have made some very optimistic plans for the coming years and you can bet you’ll see some of those projects chronicled here in the coming months.

Vala’s Pumpkin Patch

I really enjoyed my time on the farm this fall season. The best part was enjoying a variety of pies they bake – up to a thousand pies each day during their busy season!

Vala’s Pumpkin Patch

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.

Crafting the Pie Barn Sign from Precision Board Urethane Foam

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 walks us through fabricating The Pie Barn sign for his tourism farm theme project, using PBLT-30 Precision Board HDU and metal.

pie barn

In Dan’s own words…

I absolutely love apple pie, peach pie, pumpkin pie, cherry pie…  and well just about any kind of pie imaginable. When we got the chance to do up the Pie Barn sign we jumped at the chance. Better yet, I get to go back to Vala’s farm in September and sample some of these delicious treats…  but I digress…

We went with the common theme in the signs which is a sign face mounted onto a heavy duty bracket which is attached to a tree stump.  The mounting space of this sign is fairly narrow and so the tree needed to lean back to keep the sign away from the narrow path. We incorporated a rolling pin with the lettering which was part of their existing logo.

The rolling pin routing file was designed in four layers and with each layer routed from 2” thick 30 lb Precision Board. I used one of our woodgrain bitmaps from our TEXTURE MAGIC – WOODGRAINS to create the realistic woodgrain in the Precision Board. The shot below is straight off the router with no handwork or finishing. The four pieces of the giant rolling pin (52” long x 8” diameter) were glued together using PB Fast Set adhesive.

I mocked the Pie Barn sign up on the bracket to make sure we liked it.

pie barn

A 5/8” steel rod was laminated into the centre of the rolling pin. Two rods protrude from the bottom. These were welded onto the half inch thick steel plasma cut bracket. I then used an air powered die grinder to extend the woodgrain on the top and bottom of the rolling pin and onto the handles.

We are building a second larger rolling pin as well which will be perched on the roof above the entry. It measures just over 12’ wide! It will be sculpted from fibreglass reinforced concrete over this welded steel armature.

pie barn

As I said above I’m looking forward to seeing the signs in place in September and also sampling some of those delicious fresh baked pies!

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.

Creating Faux Stone Artifacts with Precision Board HDU

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 tells us how he used PBLT-30 Precision Board HDU to create ‘artifacts’ (in this case, faux stone statues) for the North Star suite of the Hazelnut Inn.

artifacts

In Dan’s own words…

The website of the Hazelnut Inn describes the North Star Suite thus…

Local lore holds that the North Star was once the home of Temperance Longbottom. An eccentric explorer, Ms. Longbottom gathered artifacts and curiosities from every mythical corner of the world and built her estate around them.  Spend the night in the captain’s quarters of an ancient sailing vessel. Relax in a tub for two. Curl up by the fireplace. Explore the lush private garden, filled with whimsical artifacts. Staying in the North Star is simply a delight.

With this legend in mind we are busy creating the many ‘artifacts’ to be housed there. Two statues are among this collection and they are in construction currently in our studio. We decided the perfect medium would be PBLT-30 Precision Board HDU. For the basic shape Peter downloaded two 3D models from the web. These were imported into EnRoute and sliced into sections two inches thick. The two statue slices filled two full sheets of Precision Board. Since we planned on doing the bulk of the modeling ourselves, and in the process modify the statues considerably, we used a 3/8” bullnose bit with a 50{afbea94bd31582343c3017644f03ec8d7d8fa2386ecb82c250661e06c0c6e111} overlap. The reliefs were pretty rough and basic but provided exactly what we needed.

These slices were then glued up using PB Fast Set. A steel frame was embedded with two heavy duty threaded steel rods protruding out of the back. These will go through the exterior of the wall to be securely bolted to the interior framework of the building. We used plenty of course threaded screws as we assembled the Precision Board, countersunk to hold the material in place while we finished the piece. After using some sculpting epoxy to fill screw holes and apply other details, Peter used a die grinder to surface and shape the model. Some portions of the statue needed to appear broken, and by using a chisel and brute force, Peter did just that. The result was very convincing!

artifacts

The first statue is now in the painting stage with base coats applied and already looks pretty fabulous! By the time we finish the paint it will be impossible to tell from a real stone statue.

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.

SignCraft excerpt: Hank Pryor of Kingdom Productions

Hank Pryor has been doing dimensional signage and theming work for a long time.  You’ve probably seen his company’s work at a cultural attraction near you.  He uses Precision Board HDU for his dimensional signs and theming projects so we couldn’t be happier to see him profiled in SignCraft Magazine in January.  He does amazing 3D work and his company, Kingdom Productions, is worth checking out.  You can read an excerpt from the article and check out a photo gallery of his work at the bottom of this article.

kingdom productions

For nearly thirty years Hank Pryor made 3D signs, mostly for local businesses, but occasionally he would get themed projects for children’s places or churches.  He branded his company Kingdom Productions and always had a place in his heart for theming.  It wasn’t until a lucky break in 2010 that he charted a new course for his company and a new focus.  Check out this excerpt from his profile piece in SignCraft Magazine.

In 2010, we were given an opportunity to do some work for the Cincinnati Zoo. That began a complete change of direction for us. We refocused the business on doing themed projects for cultural attractions—zoos, museums and theme parks. At first, it was smaller themed food stands, but then we got into themed environments. This was much closer to my original dream.

Our niche has become food and retail projects for the cultural attraction market, and we work all over the country. Themed projects are meant to take the visitor out of where they are and into somewhere else, bringing them into the experience. It is called Immersive Theming. Many of our projects have become photo-ops for the guests.

We really enjoy doing full environments, which includes the highly themed signs, but there’s a lot of other work that goes into it as well. We do projects in cultural attractions all over the US. It’s different from most sign work, though, in that you get a lot more detailed. The people who see the signs, graphics and props are on foot rather than racing by in a car.

kingdom productions

Kingdom Productions is a faith-based company which specializes in the creation of world-class themed spaces, displays, exhibits, fixtures dimensional signage through the unique combination of creative imagination and technical know-how (imagineering) from concept to completion.  They offer above and beyond customer attention through genuine respect and care for each client and their interest.  Kingdom Productions also invests in resources to care for the poor, the widow, the orphans and Christian ministries local and foreign.  They can be found on Facebook and their website.  You can also call them at (513) 843-7750.

Coastal Enterprises is the manufacturer of Precision Board HDU and offers no-cost samples in all densities.  You can sign up for our newsletter to receive the monthly blog roundup and not miss articles like this one!  You can get a quote, find a distributor and more on our website at www.precisionboard.com.

Read the entire article here and view a thumbnail gallery below with some of his amazing work done with Precision Board HDU.

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Making Magic at the 2017 Sign Invitational

First place entry for 2017 Sign InvitationalSign Builder Illustrated wrote up a fantastic article about the 2017 Sign Invitational, including information on next year’s show.  The magazine spoke to the top three winners about how they came up with their designs and the methods and materials they used to achieve the finished product.

Dan Sawatzky from Imagination Corporation took first place with his entry “Magic Train”.  Here’s an excerpt of how he came up with the idea for his submission, based on his early work in the industry painting historical murals.

Many of these murals featured Sawatzky’s favorite subject—steam trains. “I thought it would be fun to have a sign painter painting a mural with the steam train busting through the billboard,” he says, noting that the sign painter featured in the bosun’s chair was inspired by a painting by one of his favorite artists, Norman Rockwell.

Frames were built from plasma-cut and welded steel. The train was routed out of thirty-pound Precision Board HDU (PBLT-30) using a MultiCam CNC. All the paints and glazes were hand-brushed acrylic.

Coastal Enterprises was proud to be one of the sponsors of the 2017 Sign Invitational, held in Las Vegas, Nevada during the ISA International Sign Expo in April.  This was the second year of the Invitational and the theme was “Magic”.

We encourage you to participate in next year’s event and show off your creativity and craftsmanship.  The 2018 Sign Invitational will be held in Orlando, Florida in March and the theme will be “Marvelous Machine”.  The primary mission of the event is to foster involvement and creativity in the sign industry, partially through these yearly competitions.  You can submit portfolio pieces here to be considered before invites are sent in August.  25 competitors will be selected to compete.

Check out the entire article on the  Sign Builder Illustrated website.