Tooling prepreg HexTOOL® M81

carbon fiberepoxy resin

HexTool® composite tooling material combines tolerance accuracy with extreme lightness. HexTool® is Hexcel’s new patented composite tooling material that, for the first time, enables the tolerance accuracy achieved with metals to be combined with the extreme lightness of carbon fiber composites. HexTool® molds are easy to repair and are simple to modify. This new concept for lightweight, efficient large-scale tools is cost-effective compared with conventional composite tools and metal molds, especially those made from Invar®. Since the launch of HexTool®, several leading tooling engineers have used the material confirming the benefits of the technology. Composite tooling material for components cured at 250°F to 300°F (120°C to 150°C) HexTool® M81 Tooling Compound is randomly layered strips of uni-directional prepreg consolidated into continuous rolled goods. It can be utilized for multi-ply quasi-isotropic hand lay-up and subsequently CNC milled to close tolerance. HexTool® M81 has proved to be dimensionally stable with the ability to hold vacuum integrity before and after machining. Fabricated from Hexcel’s epoxy resin HexPly® M81, HexTool® M81 is ideally suited for 250°F to 300°F (120°C to 150°C) curing carbon fiber tools and can also tolerate several cure cycles at 355°F (180°C). The resulting tools are lighter and more energy efficient than tools made from steel or aluminum. They are also cost-competitive and provide tighter mold tolerances than standard composite tooling. HexTool® means that accurate and expensive master molds are no longer necessary. Hexcel has evaluated cost-effective master mold solutions.