U-Pol has utilised its 70-year heritage of pioneering products for the accident repair industry and developed a 'revolutionary clearcoat' that delivers the perfect gun finish without the final polishing process. This game-changing new product will be launched at this year’s Collision Repair Expo in April.
Developed at the company’s Wellingborough-based R&D facilities, Rapid uses advanced high resin technology to enable single and multiple panels to be coated, cured and customer ready within a fraction of the time of existing products.
Extensive tests carried out over the last 12 months reveal that the Rapid system increases productivity by up to 40 per cent, dramatically reduces costs and lower key-to-key cycle times.
Crucially, Rapid provides bodyshops with the complete flexibility of air-drying, oven baking or using infrared drying systems for curing.
Typically, one a half coats of Rapid clearcoat can be oven baked in just 10 minutes compared with 30 minutes needed for conventional products. Rapid reduces the complete process, from first coat to customer-ready finish by up to 80 minutes..
Rapid’s significant reduction in cycle time increases throughput by up to 40 per cent and ensures a substantial reduction in overall costs per repair. A high solids formula ensures that up to 30 per cent less is used compared with similar products.
Rapid allows choice of curing methods allowing greater efficiencies; it can be ready for polishing if required in just 10 minutes if oven baked, 10 minutes if infrared drying is used and just over an hour if left to air dry in an ambient temperature of 20c. A further unique property of Rapid is the use of just one hardener whereas other similar products use a range from slow to fast depending on requirements which means less stock holding for the body shop.
Guy Williams, U-Pol Chief Executive Officer, said: “Rapid has been developed with the primary objectives needed for today’s car repairer; that’s speed to reduce cycle times, flexibility in curing and to maintain high profitability. It really is the clearcoat for the 21st century.”
Rapid key features
- Increases productivity
- Reduces costs
- Flexibility with curing methods
- Easy to use
- Superb performance
- Greater sustainability