Leo grabbed his keys and headed to the nearby . He wandered the aisles of the framing department, but the largest they stocked on the floor was the standard medium size. "We can special order the big ones," the clerk told him, "but it takes ten business days."

By Wednesday night, the "City of the Future" had a rock-solid, seamless foundation.

Back at his desk, Leo did what he should have done at the start: he looked at professional distributors. He found and Dick Blick Art Materials .

had a "shippable" 40x60-inch size, but the shipping cost was still more than the board itself. The "Signage" Breakthrough

Leo drove to the sign shop. Because they bought in massive industrial quantities, their "scrap" or extra stock was higher quality and cheaper than the retail stores. They even helped him wrap it in plastic so it wouldn't ding in the wind on the roof of his car.