Chris Congdon was doing just fine as a cabinet maker and businessman when he stumbled on a better mouse trap.

        We visited his shop in Cleves two years ago and learned about a new technique for custom graphic designs in DuPont Corian for table tops and plaques.

Chris Congdon designs custom tabletops. (Enquirer file photo) | ZOOM |

        Local sports fans and tailgaters had used the idea on a table top that resembled a football field. An automobile dealership used it for a branded conference room table.

        The idea caught on as a better way to build signs. First, locally, at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, the City of Blue Ash and the Hamilton County Park District. Then nationally, at Universal Studios, Sea World and Disney World.

        Today, Mr. Congdon spends much of his time traveling with partner Steve Dulle to corporate meetings and trade shows. The company, Finished Dimensions Inc., has a subsidiary, Solutian, devoted exclusively to custom designs in Corian with bonded resin fill.

        “We've blown this thing out nationally,” Mr. Congdon says.

        “Next month, we're going to St. Louis to meet with Anheuser Busch. They operate nine amusement parks.”

        Busch would use the technology for park signs in much the same way the zoo has used it for plaques with species pictures and background text.

        “With our pocket cutting, we can drop in an actual photograph with bonded resin ... and the sign is now vandal-proof,” Mr. Congdon says. “All the text is inlaid. They'll last forever...”

        “The cost factor is huge,” he says. “Our signs are about 25 percent higher (to produce) than a redwood sign (the traditional choice). But after the third year, the redwood has to be replaced.”

        Durability, he says, is crucial

        “They hold up in sleet, sun, rain, anything,” he says. “The worse the conditions are, the better we perform.”

        There are indoor applications, too.

        “We did a beautiful 40-foot bar and tables with sports graphics everywhere” for Tyme Out, a sports bar in Groesbeck, he says.

        At LaRosa's pizzerias, “we are doing main point-of-sale counters (near the cash registers) with company logos in all the tops.”

        The applications are endless,” Mr. Congdon says.

        Next up: Corian address markers, customized 14- to 16-inch plaques for the house or mailbox that would be ordered “through Lowe's or some other mass merchandiser,” he says.

        And, “Steelcase (office-furniture manufacturer) is very interested in conference tables that they would offer as an upscale line.”

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