Uni-Mould Complete Mould Making Kit

The reason we can’t ship MEKP outside of the UK is because it is highly oxidizing, and standard carrier services do not permit it to be transported.

However you can purchase MEKP from any suppliers of composite materials including fibreglass (GRP) shops, roofing suppliers, boat buildings, car bodyshops etc. There is nothing special about the MEKP we supply, you can ask at your local supplier for ‘Standard reactivity MEKP’; brands such as Andanox KP9, Akperox A30, Butanox M50 (Akzo Nobel) are all suitable and  widely available.

It's always worth testing a small amount on a discrete area first to check that the gelcoat wont attack the vinyl. If you still have the vinyl left over, you could even apply your chosen release agent and do a test with some of the gel to make sure that it releases okay. Apart from that it should be fine, applying vinyl over a part is a well used technique when the finish of the part may not be compatible with the chosen tooling gel and the original needs to be protected. 

There is really very little you need to consider in terms of storing Uni-Mould moulds in the long term. We've had moulds that we've used for many years, sometimes using them every day, other times using them every few months. The only likely condition that could do them any harm would be if they were stored in very damp conditions or out exposed to the weather and elements. Because you'll have an exposed glass fibre edge, over time, water could 'ingress' into the glass fibre and the moulds would deteriorate; this would take a long time however and would need require constant exposure to wet weather.

It's also worth pointing out that if you're using a semi-permanent release agent, like Easy Lease, you would need to give your moulds a fresh coat of release agent when you use them again if they've been in storage for anything more than a few weeks.

Yes, you will need MEKP Catalyst to cure any of our Uni-Mould resins, including the Tooling Gelcoat. You can order the MEKP from the product page and can also find the MEKP separately here: MEKP Catalyst

Really, any more than 4 layers at a time would be risking the mould overheating. If you wanted to go thicker, then you will need to wait for the first 4 layers to cure, then key the surface and apply another 4 layers (you need the 4 layer thickness to give you the heat to cure the resin)  

The Uni-Mould Coupling Coat can be backed up with tooling resin and CSM as soon as it is tacky and up to 48 hours later. The time for the resin to become tacky varies depending on catalyst ratio and ambient temperature but typically we would expect around 2hrs after application if using 2% catalyst in a typical 20°C ambient temperature.

We do not recommend using the Uni-Mould with our range of XPREG out of autoclave pre-pregs. It lacks the temperature resistance for the full cure and can cause surface finish issues.

Your intended use is one of the most typical uses for the Uni-Mould starter kit and so the suggested layup and the exact process described in the technical guide for the Uni-Mould system would be exactly right for you. As would the process shown in the bonnet making video tutorial.

Typical layup for Uni-Mould is Tooling Gelcoat -> Tooling Gelcoat -->100g CSM with Coupling Coat --> 4 layers of 450g CSM and Tooling Resin.

The Uni-Mould system will be fine over epoxy.

Acrylic plastic is not suitable for use with the Uni-Mould system as the styrene within the Tooling Gel Coat will eat into and damage the surface of the acrylic.

Generally as long as the pattern has been constructed to be reasonably durable, I would not expect any distortion of the pattern itself during the Uni-Mould Mould making process.

The main area of concern is the use of paints over the pattern. Many paints, including rattle-can spray paints, are laden with solvents which can take months to fully come out of the surface. The problem this causes is during the cure of the gelcoat and subsequent resin layers during mould making, out-gassing of the paint can release solvents which will degrade the performance of the release agent and can cause the pattern to stick in the new mould. If you cannot avoid the use of paints, then we would recommend the use of PVA Mould Release Agent as it provides a physical barrier between the two surfaces and thus significantly reduces the likelihood of the pattern sticking to the mould. PVA does leave some surface marring on the mould which will need polishing out for a perfectly glossy finish.

A better sheet to use as baseboard is polypropylene sheet as naturally resin does not stick to it and thus a release agent is not needed.

If you need to use polycarbonate then we would recommend you apply release agent on to it and do a small test first to ensure the sheet does not stick.

The XTC-3D product appears to be an epoxy based coating so we would expect that, with the appropriate release agents, a mould made using our Uni-Mould™ System would release from the resin no problem. However, this is not a product combination we have tested ourselves so we would recommend that you conduct a small test to rule out any potential unexpected effects.

Uni-Mould moulds are based on a very high quality vinylester tooling gelcoat which will out-last more conventional polyester gelcoats. The special gelcoat is also highly polishable which means that hard-working moulds can be re-polished to restore them to original condition (something which is almost impossible with epoxy tools for example). The lifespan is dependent upon a number of factors, particularly how well they’re treated, but in our workshop we have found a well looked-after mould will give hundreds of releases. We have 7 year old moulds still in regular use!