I need to get a mold of a car seat foam. It has to be made from epoxy resin & gel coat for strength.

Has anyone done this before?

is there anything you can put on the foam to harden it up?

Will the gel coat react with the foam?

What do i need to do for a smooth glossy finish to the mold?

Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks James.

Hi James,

I'm assuming we're talking about the type of foam that would be the cushioning inside a car seat? - I.e. the (typically) beige/orange squashy foam?

If it is then you'll need to build up some strength in it as part of the coating process. I imagine that polyester resin will react with the foam and so too would 2 pack paints (like filler primer) which leaves you with the option of applying epoxy resin to the foam to make the hard shell. You would need to reinforce this using some very light glass, a 160g 2/2 Twill Glass Cloth, or even a few layers of 25g Plain Weave Glass Cloth or even some Glass Surface Tissue. This would give stiffness to the resin shell and mean that you could then flat and polish this shell to a good standard ready to take a mould off.

My preferred resin for this task would be our Epoxy Coating Resin - its completely blush-free cured finish makes it very nice for sanding and flatting - ideal for an application like this.

I hope this helps and look forwarding to seeing how you get on.

All the best, Matt

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales