PURPOSE: To effectively utilize energy and to maximaly put a material to practical use by preliminarily cutting a mat of a glass fiber reinforced material into a shape matched as a blank and adding a binder to the cut material and applying energy to activate the binder to rigidify the same.

CONSTITUTION: A reinforcing material mat is preliminarily cut by a die cutter 62 so as to conincide with the developed shape of a preform. After the mat is cut, the binder and catalyst accelerator 70 from a binder resin source 68 are applied by ejection, rolling or calendering in a binder applying device 66. Next, the synthetic blank of this reinforcing agent and the binder is transferred to a mold 72 by a robot 74. The mold 72 is moved to a press 76 along a shuttle 78 and two half parts of the mold are pressed to duplicate the desired shape of the preform and energy is applied from a directional energy source 80. Next, by moving the mold 72 to a taking-out position along the shuttle 78, a robot 82 takes a cured preform 84 out of the mold 72.