This invention relates to the field of molding large laminated foam-bodied panels, for use in insulated structures and the like, and in particular, to an apparatus for molding such panels which through novel and improved construction, greatly facilitates production of rich panels in a variety of sizes.
Until recently, foamed and foam-bodied panels were produced by a self-sustaining, exothermic chemical reaction caused by mixtures of the foam ingrediants. Since no special apparatus for heating the foam during molding was required, large size panels were made in knock-down forms constructed of plywood or the like, and relied on clamps and other reinforcing members for structural rigidity during molding. The forms were crude and worse, were very costly in terms of time of production.
Only recently, the federal government banned the production methods which rely upon the chemicals used in such exothermic reactions. It has therefore become necessary for the industry to provide new methods and apparatus for producing large, laminated or clad foam-bodied panels. Molding machines have been known for smaller items, but producing panels on the order of twelve to fifteen feet in length and four feet wide presents different problems.
Such problems might be summarized as the difficulty of providing an apparatus which is large enough and which is sturdy enough to provide a large flat sided pressurized molding cavity, and at the same time, which is easy to operate. Applicant has provided an apparatus which not only overcomes these difficulties, but which is portable, each being mountable on a wheeled or castored carriage, and which provides full access to the molding cavity, which can produce a variety of panel sizes, and which "locks up" in an automatic fashion.
Applicants invention is not only applicable to flat panels, but to corner-type panels as well.