During 2003 Henleycraft was approached to produce the tooling and initially the prototypes for a road legal, single seater Kit Car.
A solid model was designed on CAD by the customer and various different designs were considered and modelled on computer before a pattern was produced.
Once the concept was finalised a PU Foam Pattern was built up in sections and hand crafted to the required shape.
The PU Foam Pattern was then prepared with filler and primer polyester coats and flattened to a smooth finish.
The Pattern was then finally painted with a high gloss black finishing coat. The next stage was to address any minor imperfections with fine wet and dry paper. The whole pattern was then polished to a glass like finish.
Parting flanges were then built around the pattern in the appropriate places to allow for the mould to be manufactured in six separate components. This enabled the dismantling of the mould for the finished GRP moulding to be removed.
GRP Mould Clamps were extensively used in the manufacture of the moulds to allow for the ease of assembly, alignment of the moulds and to create a near perfect seam on the finished moulding. (see GRP Mould Clamp link).
Once the mould was complete it was released from the pattern prepared for manufacture and the six separate moulds were then bolted together. The use of the GRP Mould Clamps insured the moulds were perfectly aligned.
“The one-piece body is a masterpiece of moulding”
Kitcar June 2007
The completed moulding ready to be delivered to the customer.
“And then there’s the quality, the body is in gel-coat colour and achieves a perfect, deep and lustrous shine that also makes a superb canvas for some really original graphics.”