It's a three-dimensional piece
Copings, capstones, balustrade sections, bollards, bench ends. Anything where the concrete has to be shaped on more than one face.
Precast · Unit moulds
Precast concrete moulds built around the bed.
Three-dimensional unit moulds for balustrades, copings, capstones, bench ends, bollards and structural precast — designed to lift off cleanly and stack in the yard between pours.
When it fits
When a unit mould is the right route.
Formliners give you a face. Unit moulds give you the whole shape.
The finish has to survive the yard
A working precast yard is hard on tooling. Unit moulds have to be built to be dropped, hosed, and rolled between pours without softening.
You want the mould to stack
How the mould stores between uses is part of the design. A unit mould that's built without stacking in mind will get damaged in the store.
Reorders have to match
The drawing, the pattern and the material spec stay on our file. A replacement mould two years later will match the first one, not a re-interpretation of it.
The choice
How we build a unit mould.
A unit mould starts from a machined, sculpted or scanned pattern. We build the pattern first, get you to sign off on it, then pour the silicone or polyurethane against it. That way the concrete comes out matching a physical reference you've already seen and approved — not a drawing on a screen.
The mould has a mother mould or a backing frame around it. On simple pieces that's a plywood or steel box. On complex geometry it's a rigid GRP or timber shell that holds the elastic mould in the right shape when the concrete goes in.
Draft, split lines, and how the piece lifts off are decided at the pattern stage, not on the bed. If a piece can't be lifted vertically because of an undercut, the mould splits or peels — but that's a design decision, not a discovery.
What we need
To quote this properly.
A drawing or a photograph
A general arrangement, a sketch, or a photograph of the existing piece. Enough to see what shape we're making.
The mix and the pour method
Vibrated, self-compacting, GRC spray, hand-worked. It changes the silicone or polyurethane grade we reach for.
Rough weekly output
One piece a week, five, twenty. Determines whether one mould is enough or whether you need parallel tools.
How the piece leaves the mould
Vacuum lifted, hand lifted, rolled out. It affects the split line and where we put the parting.
The honest bit
Unit moulds have to be earned back.
A unit mould is a bigger up-front cost than a formliner. The trade-off is that it gives you a finished three-dimensional piece rather than a decorated face. For anything you're making in ones or twos, that's not always worth it — a single-use timber and polystyrene mould might do the job.
The economics start to make sense when you're pouring the same shape repeatedly, when the finish matters, and when you're going to want a replacement in a few years. If any two of those are true, a proper unit mould pays for itself well inside its working life.
We'll say if we think you don't need one yet. It costs us a quote to be honest and it saves you a purchase order.
Drill down
3 variants of this service.
Each one has its own page with the detail we'd normally cover on the first call.
Related
Where this fits in the wider system.
Get in touch
Send us a photograph of the panel or the elevation.
One photograph tells us what surface you're chasing, and one line about the mix tells us what silicone or polyurethane will survive it.
Real people, a real workshop
You deal with the people who make it.
No call centre and no middlemen. When you contact TCI Construction, you speak to the team who design, build and check your mould.
- A real Warwickshire workshopUnit 15, Waterloo Park, Bidford-on-Avon, Alcester B50 4JG.
- Real people on the phoneCall the team on 01789 224228, Monday to Friday.
- The same team on every jobDesign, production and aftercare come from the people you see here.
- Part of TCI GroupFive specialist brands, one engineering team. Visit TCI Group.
Thomas LaneManaging Director
George PrestonDesign & Project Manager
Kelly BallingerHead of Partnerships
Jim AndertonProduction Manager
TheodoreEmployee Welfare