Method and apparatus for the manufacture of shaped articles from fibre-reinforced plastics material

In a method of manufacture of shaped articles from a fibre-reinforced plastics material, in which dry spiky fibrous material is placed in a recess in a mould die consisting of one or more parts, said recess being closed by means of a mould cover which is moveable relative to the mould die, thereby to form a mould cavity, whereafter a solidifiable, liquid plastics composition is introduced into the mould cavity and there subjected to pressure of such magnitude that the mould cavity becomes substantially completely filled with said plastics composition, said mould cavity then being held closed until the plastics composition has at least partially solidified, the improvement wherein said method includes, in sequence, the steps of:

• positioning said dry spiky reinforcing material in its intended orientation in a thin-walled replaceable lining consisting of a channel-shaped plate of stiff flexible plastics material capable of taking the shape of the mould with the shape and size of the stiff, flexible channel-shaped plate corresponding to that of the mould cavity and filling said channel-shaped plate recess with said dry spiky reinforcing material such that said lining maintains the approximate shape of the finished article during filling of the reinforcing material within the channel recess with said lining functioning as a tray for said dry spiky reinforcing material during insertion into and removal from the mould die;
• placing said lining with said reinforcing material oriented therein into said die recess;
• removing said lining and the moulded article therein upon completion of the moulding operation;
• and
• replacing the removed lining and moulded article with a similar lining having fresh dry spiky reinforcing material oriented therein after filling the channel-shaped recess of the similar lining with fresh dry spiky reinforcing material.