Investing in the Future of Engineering: A Look Back at a Successful Year for the Precision Board Donation Program

At Coastal Enterprises, we’re passionate about empowering the next generation of engineers, fabricators, and innovators. Through our Precision Board Donation Program, we proudly provide high-performance urethane tooling board to schools, universities, and student-led teams working on real-world engineering and manufacturing projects.

This year has been one of our most successful yet, marked by new partnerships, groundbreaking student innovations, and continued growth in programs that prepare young engineers for the industries of tomorrow.

Building the Next Generation of Makers

Whether it’s a lightweight mold for a solar-powered vehicle, a composite lay-up tool for an aerospace prototype, or a CNC-machined component for an electric racing car, students across the country are using Precision Board Urethane Tooling Board to bring complex ideas to life.

By working with a professional-grade material that’s trusted by manufacturers in aerospace, automotive, marine, and defense, students gain hands-on experience that mirrors the real demands of industry, learning how to design, fabricate, and problem-solve with precision.

Highlights from 2025

This year, Coastal Enterprises donated thousands of pounds of Precision Board to university and technical programs nationwide, supporting projects that blend creativity with technical expertise.

Some of our favorite highlights include:

University Engineering Teams – From Formula SAE to solar-powered racing cars, students used Precision Board to machine aerodynamic body molds, tooling fixtures, and composite lay-up tools that performed under pressure.

Aerospace & Manufacturing Programs – Engineering departments utilized Precision Board for prototypes, pattern tools, and aerodynamic testing components, taking advantage of its low CTE and high dimensional stability.

Vocational & Technical Schools – Future machinists and fabricators trained on CNC processes using Precision Board, gaining real-world experience with a versatile, easy-to-machine tooling material.

Each of these projects reflects the ingenuity and drive that define the next generation of engineers, and we’re honored to play a small role in their success.

Why It Matters

Supporting education isn’t just a part of what we do; it’s part of who we are. For over 50 years, Coastal Enterprises has proudly manufactured every sheet of Precision Board Urethane Tooling Board in the USA. Through our donation program, we’re giving students access to the same quality materials used in professional aerospace and advanced manufacturing environments.

These experiences prepare them for the challenges they’ll face in their careers and inspire them to push boundaries even further.

Looking Ahead

Looking ahead, we’re committed to supporting engineering and manufacturing programs, helping young innovators build the skills and confidence to lead the industry forward.

If your school or student team could benefit from high-quality tooling materials, we’d love to hear from you. Together, we can continue shaping the future of engineering and advanced manufacturing, one project at a time.

Learn more about the Precision Board Donation Program: https://precisionboard.com/donation-program/

Coastal Enterprises Company
Proudly manufacturing Precision Board Urethane Tooling Board in the USA for over 50 years — and investing in the innovators of the future.

How Many Parts Can You Pull from a Precision Board Tooling Mold?

One of the most common questions we hear from customers using Precision Board tooling for thermoforming molds is:

“How many parts can I pull off a Precision Board tooling mold?”

It’s a simple question with a complex answer, and in this blog, we’ll break it down for you.

What Determines the Lifespan of a Precision Board Tooling Mold?

The number of parts you can produce from a Precision Board tooling mold depends on several key factors, including:

Process Temperature
Cycle Times
Material Being Formed
Tooling Use & Geometry ️
Precision Board Density

With 16 different densities available in both high-temp (PBHT) and low-temp (PBLT) options, Precision Board tooling materials offer solutions for everything from short-run projects to full-scale production. The right tooling density and coating combination can mean the difference between a mold that produces a handful of parts versus thousands.

Choosing the Right Precision Board Tooling for Your Needs

Every project is different. Some tooling applications may benefit from using a lower-density Precision Board tooling option with a protective surface coating, while others may require a higher-density Precision Board tooling mold that doesn’t need coating at all. The best approach depends on your budget, production volume, and physical requirements.

Need help selecting the right Precision Board tooling material? Our technical sales team is ready to assist—ensuring you get the most durable and cost-effective tooling solution for your project.

Get Precision Board Tooling Fast—We Ship in 1-2 Days!

We keep PBHT-48 and all 16 densities of Precision Board tooling materials in stock with shipping times of just 1-2 days. If you’re looking for a high-performance, readily available tooling solution, we’ve got you covered.

Call us at 800-845-0745
Email us at hdu@precisionboard.com

Why Choose Coastal Enterprises for Your Tooling Needs?

Made in the USA – Fully integrated domestic tooling manufacturing for unmatched supply chain stability
Industry-Leading Tooling Performance – Used in aerospace, defense, transportation, energy, healthcare, and more
Versatile Tooling Applications – Perfect for composite tooling, prototyping, thermoforming, pattern making, signage, and theming

Want pricing, free samples, or expert tooling advice? Contact us today!

Coastal Enterprises is a privately-owned company, located in California. We manufacture 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. Precision Board is proudly made in the USA, from raw material sourcing to manufacturing, cutting, custom bonding, and shipping. It is currently being used in many essential industries including aerospace, defense, transportation, energy and healthcare. You can get pricing, free samples, sign up for newsletters or contact us.

Primal Speedbike Fairing Construction Using Precision Board

Coastal Enterprises, manufacturers of Precision Board HDU, is proud to host guest blogs written by some of the industry’s biggest movers and shakers, posted to the Precision Board Blog. This guest blog is written by George Leone, a long-time member of the Human Powered Vehicle (HPV) racing scene, and Team Captain for Team Primal. In this guest blog (part 1 of 3), George elaborates on the team’s progress towards fabricating Primal 3 using Precision Board and competing at the Human Powered Vehicle Speed Challenge near Battle Mountain, Nevada in September 2021 (this year’s event was cancelled).

Tom Robinson who helped me drive the truck and trailer, Matt Beccue does CNC work for Safran Aerospace & coordinated the project there, and Judy Lantaca, one of my favorite former Student Technicians at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

In George Leone’s own words…

After almost 5 years of chassis design and construction, precise aerodynamic design and computer simulation, we are poised to create the fairing for Primal 3, a streamlined, enclosed bicycle using 15 lb./cu./ft. Precision Board in the manufacturing process. This muscle-powered vehicle is designed for extreme speeds, far faster than you can legally drive on the freeway. A previous blog years ago featured Primal 2 which exceeded 70 mph three times using muscle power alone, on the flat road at the World Human Powered Speed Challenge held annually near Battle Mountain, Nevada.

We chose Precision Board not only for it’s great workability and consistency, but also for it’s high recyclables content. Our speedbike (also known as a Human-Powered Vehicle or HPV) is not only raced for records, but acts as a demonstration of what the future of transportation holds for us. Lightweight, extremely aerodynamic, structurally safe vehicles that use a minimum of effort to achieve energy efficiency. The recyclables content of the Precision Board used in its manufacture fits our futuristic agenda perfectly.

Pickup and transport to Safran Aerospace for CNC work.

We picked up two custom bonded blocks of foam for the right and left sides of the fairing in early March 2020. It was great seeing the clean, state of the art manufacturing facility that Coastal Enterprises runs. I used to run the Student Projects Shop at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and always look at shops with a critical eye for cleanliness and safety.

The custom bonded blocks the we received had bond lines that were flawless, and the PB Bond 240 used as an adhesive that guaranteed there would be no “chunking out” of a hard adhesive, damaging the foam during the machining process. I’ve bonded a lot of foam in the last 40+ years and I was very impressed with the quality of the bond lines. From now on, I will definitely have Coastal Enterprises make custom bonded blocks for me. Not only does this save “gluing” time, it also saves re-work time to repair chunks of hard adhesive torn out by the CNC router or by the hand tools that I use.

My neighbor Jim McEntire, who restores tractors and vintage Ford cars, graciously loaned his pickup truck and a heavy duty trailer to bring the foam blocks to Safran Aerospace in Santa Maria, CA and from there home to my barn 4 hours North of Los Angeles, near Atascadero, CA.

We left Orange, California, the home of Coastal Enterprises, at almost rush hour and had to drive through Los Angeles. Somewhere in traffic in LA, I received a text from my friend and Cal Poly SLO Shop Manager, Eric Pulse, who I worked with for years. “So I see you’ve got the foam and are driving it North” !!! I replied “What the heck, how could you know this?” (I had not mentioned to anyone that I was getting the foam at that time.) Eric came back “Oh, a former student saw a truck towing a trailer with foam on it, and figured it was you. He thinks he saw you as a passenger.” (My old friend Tom Robinson was driving at the time). I swear, I could never rob a bank, someone would recognize me right away!

We delivered the Precision Board HDU three hours later to Safran Aerospace in Santa Maria, CA, as they had generously offered to CNC machine the aerodynamic body shape into the foam. Matt Beccue, the CNC supervisor, met us and we offloaded the foam and then drove the truck and empty trailer home.

The blue “Dychem” lines on the foam were done to verify the location of the surface as the project progressed.

Stay tuned for Part 2 and Part 3!

George Leone has a long history with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and is a fount of knowledge when it comes to both composites and Human Powered Vehicle Racing. He volunteered sporadically helping Cal Poly’s HPV teams from 1980 to 1989, and then continuously from 1989 to the present. George also ran the Cal Poly Projects Shop from 2001 to 2017. This shop includes facilities for machining, student welding, woodworking, sheet metal work, advanced composites and design space for senior projects, as well as nine engineering clubs that compete at a national level. He has also built and raced his own HPVs since 1988.

ABOUT TEAM PRIMAL

Team Primal consists of a group of friends, current Cal Poly Professors and former students. It is privately funded and is not sponsored by Cal Poly in any way.

ABOUT COASTAL ENTERPRISES

At Coastal Enterprises, we like to look at the composites industry as a fully collaborative effort. Every fresh new development by an individual is really a contribution to a collective knowledge base. Like any scientific pursuit, the most potent advancements are made when information is shared freely between likeminded groups of people. For this reason, we feel obliged to do everything we can to enlighten and empower the future community of composites professionals. That’s why we support school programs with donations of Precision Board HDU. Click HERE to find out more about the program or give us a call with your questions at 800-845-0745.

Cal Poly Human Powered Vehicle Breaks 26 Year Old School Record!

Last year we brought you the story of how engineering students at Cal Poly used Precision Board urethane tooling to make fairings for their human-powered vehicle. We also told you that the team withdrew from the ASME competition and decided instead to compete at Battle Mountain, Nevada in September 2019 in order to beat the U.S. collegiate team speed record of 61.3 miles per hour. Hit the link below to see how they did and read the harrowing story of the competition, including video of a crash that ended up being a real test of the team’s built in safety measures.

From George Leone:

The Cal Poly San Luis Obispo HPV Team completed their fully enclosed Human Powered Vehicle “Ambition” just five days before competition. In the process they had to abandon a glitchy video vision system in favor of installing last-minute windows!

The event was the World Human Powered Vehicle Speed Competition (WHPSC) near Battle Mountain, Nevada in September 2019. On the second day of racing Josh Gieschen, the student pilot/motor, attained 64 miles per hour, exceeding UC Berkeley’s 26 year-old US collegiate record of 61.29 mph. But the wind was over the 3.7 meters per second limit, too strong to be “legal”, so no record was allowed.

This became a pattern for the rest of the week, with their speeds going as high as 66 mph twice, frustrating the team again and again with “illegal” winds. Leading up to the last day, Cal Poly only had one “legal” wind run, which was 1/10th mile an hour slower than the record.

It came down to the last day, Saturday. They were ceded in the second heat of the morning. Josh got into the bike, the team taped the seams of the shell closed, launched and followed in the school van. He did 63.11 mph, but was frustrated because the wind was “illegal” once again. That looked like the end of it for the year.

The Team drove back to start and requested to run again in the fourth and last heat. It’s rare to attempt two runs so close together because the “motor” usually can’t recover that quick, but Josh was adamant.

Veteran racer Peter Borenstadt graciously gave up his position in that heat so that Cal Poly could have another chance. That’s how HPV Racers are.

Cal Poly became serious, quietly taping the pilot in and launching. Josh gave it everything he had left. Just before the bike reached the crew in the “catch zone” (riders are fully enclosed and can’t put their feet down) an exhausted Josh grabbed the brakes too hard. The rear tire blew.

Ambition suddenly pitched sideways and pencil-rolled four times, amazingly ending upright beside the road to be caught by the crew. Because all the safety and restraint systems worked perfectly Josh exited with only a few bruises, and only a few scratches on the body of the bike.

Then they waited for the timer’s report on the radio. “Ambition: 63.68 miles per hour; wind is legal. Congratulations Cal Poly – you have a record!” The team went crazy!

Read more about their record breaking run HERE and also catch up on our original blog where the team used Precision Board urethane tooling to fabricate their HPV.

How Berkeley Formula Racing Uses Precision Board Tooling

The following Precision Board Guest Blog is written by Hunter Wheeler, a student of engineering at U.C. Berkeley. Hunter is part of the Berkeley Formula Racing program and describes how the Formula SAE Team used Precision Board urethane tooling board to make one-off molds for the carbon fiber pieces of their race car.

In Hunter’s own words…

The Precision Board tooling board donations provided to us by Coastal Enterprises is an invaluable part of our manufacturing and we wouldn’t be able to make our carbon fiber aerodynamic package, bodywork, or custom seat without it (Ed note: Coastal provides material to schools through our Donation Program. Students will typically bond pieces together for their final product). I’ll give a brief rundown of our design and manufacturing process in this blog.

We begin our design season by learning and reviewing aerodynamics fundamentals from textbooks and research papers. We set specifications for our target CLA (Downforce), CDA (Drag), package weight, and center of pressure using a LapSimulation model written by members of our team in MATLab. This model simulates the race car driving the different events at competition and gives an estimated points gain (or loss) for changes in parameters such as those listed above. We choose designs to pursue for the season after an analysis of this model, testing from previous years, and through consulting literature.

We model our wings and bodywork in SolidWorks and run Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) simulations in ANSYS Fluent.

After design, each carbon fiber component is manufactured on a one-off urethane mold made out of Precision Board. We start by cutting the foam to the required size, and glue sheets of urethane together to reach the necessary thickness for each mold.

The foam is then machined on our customer built CNC router.

We take the 3D models of our wings from SolidWorks and convert these to coordinates the CNC router can interpret. This process gives us a female profile for each wing half. We then apply a few layers of gelcoat to the surface of the mold using a paint spray gun to achieve a hard surface that can be polished to a smooth finish.

After sanding, waxing, and buffing the gelcoat, we lay-up carbon fiber on the mold.

This is enclosed in a vacuum bag and placed in an industrial oven to cure.

After about 6 hours, the carbon fiber has cured and we are able to remove a wing half.

This process is completed for each of the wings, body work panels, and any other carbon fiber components we manufacture. We then bond these wing-halves together and do some post processing to achieve our final manufactured profiles.

You can check out a video below we made from testing our vehicle at Crow’s Landing.

The Berkeley Formula Racing team has already competed for 2019. See the results in the chart below and keep an eye out for our 2020 car!

Formula SAE is an international engineering design competition that provides ambitious college students the unique opportunity to enhance their engineering design and project management skills through practical application. Berkeley Formula Racing creates a formula-style, single-seat race car over the course of a school year in order to participate in FSAE Lincoln, a competition between 80 teams every June. The competition is comprised of dynamic events to test the vehicle’s performance and reliability, and static events, to test the rigor and feasibility of the engineering design and business strategy. The competition pushes the boundaries of conventional learning, pushing students to develop skills applicable to the professional world that are overlooked in traditional school curriculum.

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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Investing in the Future of Engineering: A Look Back at a Successful Year for the Precision Board Donation Program