Gracol Composites Ltd

25/07/2022

It’s really good to see our FRP grating freshly installed and ready to go! Here you can see our standard mesh in green being held in place with M-clips.

13/06/2022

Another first for Gracol has been modifying our FRP flat bar for use as a grip-tape. For this application our flat bar was sanded down and gritted before being cut into custom strips for the staircase pictured here. These strips have been mechanically fastened to improve the staircase safety.

24/02/2022

Glass fibre rovings are talked about a lot in pultrusion, and we have a lot of them here at Gracol - but what actually are they?

Pictured here are a couple of cheeses (industry speak for the coil of rovings that are used in pultrusion). To make these coils of rovings thousands of thin glass fibres are bundled together to form a larger continuous strand with a specific weight per meter. The strand is then coiled up and packaged for distribution.

There are many different types of glass used to fabricated glass fibre rovings, but here at Gracol we use E-glass. Other types of glass are used for specialised applications such as alkaline environments, structural members, and electrical insulators. Glass rovings make up between 60-70% of our pultruded products, and give our products their strength and stiffness properties.

21/02/2022

Staircases, stepladders, and platforms are one of our favourite things to fabricate at Gracol. We’ve adapted the designs a lot over the years - changing the profile shapes, increasing the range of dimensions, and fabricating in new colours. One of our more popular features has been the addition of stair nosing! Stair nosing (pictured here) is a gritted L section that is attached to the edges of our FRP grating to improve visibility and grip. Get in contact with us to find out more about how FRP can improve your access ways.

15/02/2022

Gracolite FRP access ways are a resilient and reliable access solution. Each system is custom designed to suit our clients needs using different combinations of our FRP stairways, step ladders, rung ladders, walkways, and platforms. All our FRP products are non-conductive, chemical resistant, and designed to meet international national safety standards.

Pictured here is a new Gracolite FRP walkway and step ladder designed for installation in an agricultural plant.

10/02/2022

There’s more to our FRP products than grating and flat bars - here at Gracol we fabricate our own pultruded fibreglass sail battens!

Sail battens are a flexible insert for supporting the leech of a sail. Our FRP sail battens come in a range of sizes and length to suit any project.

Download our structural profiles brochure or get in contact with us to find out more.

24/01/2022

Our pultruded fluted tubes are lightweight, easy to grip, maintenance free, non-conductive, and chemical resistant - making tool handles an excellent application!

Pictured here are our safety yellow fluted tubes having the finishing touches added before they’re sent off for use as rake handles.

17/01/2022

Saltwater is an aggressive environment - materials like timber and steel can quickly deteriorate and degrade in the marine conditions found all around New Zealand.

Pictured here is a video from one of our customers showing their FRP grating installed as a step and jetty decking. Our GFRP grating is highly resistant to the the harsh chemicals in marine environments. The grating will never rot, corrode, or require re-painting.

13/01/2022

We spend a lot of time thinking about how we should store our FRP products. With a standard length of six meters, and profiles spanning up to thirteen meters a lot of room is dedicated to storage! Coiling our FRP rods allows us to have a single length of over 200 meters. This makes shipping as easy as putting it on a courier, saves a lot of space, and gives our customers the freedom to reduce their waste. We can also provide a spool to assist with uncoiling on site.

06/01/2022

It’s a bright start to the New Year here at Gracol! Our pultruded FRP rods are being fabricated in a wide range of colours including the bright orange pictured here. Our FRP products are coloured by adding a strong pigment into our resin mix during manufacturing - giving our products the same bold colour the whole way through.

21/12/2021

13/12/2021

At Gracol we have been working with various customers to add a peel-ply finish to our pultruded profiles. Our inexpensive peel ply layer gives our typically smooth pultruded profiles a rough, contaminate free surface finish that enhances adhesion to other surfaces.

This is ideal for customers such as SLRacing who were previously grinding down our flat bar for use in their high-performance composite laminates. Adding the peel ply improves the adhesion of the flat bar in the laminate without the dusty and time consuming process of grinding it down.