Background (The pain was evident)
Next-Level Composites has been working where time & energy permits since about 2019 where we purchased £900 of resin, cloth and miscellaneous from a leading UK company, to see if we could make Advanced Trimarans from resin infused composites.
We couldn’t.
I remember one infusion after carrying one with the previous infusion despite some small ‘unfindable’ leaks-with the predictably rubbish results. I confess I lost my temper after we’d got the infusion started after the 6th time of leak-tracing-and-leakproofing, only to have the bag pierced not by a sharp corner of the part, but by the infusion mesh consumable itself.
Sometimes you can’t remember the moment you gave up. With Vacuum Resin Infusion, you can 🙂 🙂 🙂
Years of quiet Development
So after around £1200-£1800 later on pumps, pipes & plastics, cloth, consumables and crap (tried disposing of 25Kgs of polyester infusion resin that set in the steel drum ??) we knew enough to know that it wasn’t going to work.
Having experienced not-so-great relationships with UK composites suppliers, we looked world-wide for better materials. We knew we’d need a lot for our boats, and thought it would be helpful if we let customers have access to some of those materials from our available inventory.
On infusion the several years of vacuum bagging experience meant we had quite a few ideas of what would work better.
We looked to silicone vacuum bagging ……. but the spray-on seemed like a few £1000s more with all the equipment, and having a ration of 1 bag for 1 part seemed great for those making 2000 1-design chairs, but not so good for making 2000 different parts.
So we got heavily into CAD and bought CAM (routers) and 3D Printers. We upgraded everything as back then the machines were basic & needed home-upgrades. Today the 3D Printers are far better. Cam (routers) are improving but still have a long way to improve.
We have been busy inventing, making and testing our Vacuum Resin Infusion solutions for many years & documented enough of the journey.
We thought we were close in June 2024 and started videoing & documenting all the things the technological inventions do for our YouTube channel.
Apparently it’s not the destination, it’s the Journey. Whoever said that deserves {insert torture treatment here}
NEXT-LEVEL COMPOSITES LIMITED Company number 16650687 was incorporated only on 14 August 2025. We only did that because we acheived 100% vacuum & found out how to protect the design sufficiently, in other words we can only now launch – so we did!
We can now process the last 14 months of videos (June’24-Aug ’25) for the YouTube channel – it would have made no sense to edit or even publish while the VARTM Ultra-Lite Infusor was good, but not perfect. Those videos tell the story superbly well of the importance of persistence, problem solving, and having that background in 3D design technologies. 30 years of experience with UK FTSE100 company consulting also help.
Until August 2025 we weren’t 100% happy with the main invention, the VARTM Ultra-Lite Infusor.
It’s what made August 2025 a key milestone
We moved out of London right after making the Gen 8.0 Ultralight Infusor & before even running one test infusion.
Forget about the crazy tests we’d run on other generations ( 🙂 ), not even a few layers of 20cmx20cm
We moved to the coast, where light industrial units are more affordable, and where the sea is more accessible should we want to drop a boat into it. ……
……. we do
Running the 1st test infusion of gen 8.0 with about as many part-‘molds’ as could be fitted on the table. Worthy of an air-traffic controller, we got it done – around 7 x 1m box section foam cored, 2x pie-shapes, Several 60cm wing-lengths & a few scraps to test as pre-preg & to throw in our freezer. Several Kilos of Epoxy infusion resin, hardly any plastics or other disposables/consumables.
Another EPIC test result.
Already thinking about gen 8.1 🙂
OK, so the real challenge was what to do about business start-up procedures.
We had to do some thinking about how to approach our market, who those people were, how to reach them & how to help them. We’ve got super-high tech but haven’t got the 15,000 sqft warehouse full or fork-lifted pallets … yet (if ever)
Other than the Gen 8 test success, this period was about structuring the website & the YouTube channel so we could have flexibility without large-launch constraints
Now we can get out content out, and bring members onboard at an agreeable pace 🙂 That, with complexities which we won’t get to until much later, was a huge win ….almost as large as the Gen 8 results themselves.
Community
We’re all about community & helping composite enthusiasts improve their skills right through to starting their own companies. Although our manpower/resources are extremely stretched, we’ve had time while revising our molds and producing the next versions to be testing & learning how to YouTube and how to website/webserver. We’ll be introducing a forum, containing a broad knowledge-base and giving members the chance to reach out for help – everything from basic or exotic & weird problems, through to some kind of “Fiver”-type “please infuse this for me.”
It’s that principle of helping people acheive their dreams, that made us look outside of the UK in the first place. We’re a community – not a shop window !!!!!!