Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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GUA~ ILING ASSEMBlY
The present invention relates to hand or guard
railing assemblies and more particularly to an improved
railing assembly comprising a minimal number of
constituent component parts which can be easily assembled
on-site without requiring the use of special tools.
Conventionally, railing assemblies are typically
fabricated in work shops by skilled metal workers who join
the constituent structural components of a railing,
comprising rails, post members and pickets, by way of
welding or brazing. Such railing assemblies are expensive
to manufacture owing to the requisite use of skilled
labour and specialized tools. Further, these conventional
assemblies are generally cumbersome to transport to the
construction site for final installation.
Improvements to the traditional art were achieved
by the use of aluminium extrusions for fabricating the
various sub-assemblies of railing structures. These
developments generally sought to facilitate assembly at
the construction site by unskilled installers, hence
permitting the railing structures to be more easily and
inexpensively transported as compact sub-assemblies.
However, the above-mentioned improvements still
have certain disadvantages. For instance, most of the
improved railing structures have numerous sub-assemblies,
that is5 rails with two or three component parts or top
and bottom rails of markedly different construction.
Existing railing assemblies may also require a number of
additional connecting components or various cover sections
such as clip portions for securing the assembly of a
multi-component rail or for covering open sections of a
bottom rail extending between the posts and pickets of a
particular railing structure. Other arrangements may
require special tools in order to assemble the various
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components or require conventional fastening means such as
screws, rivets or bolts. The foregoing disadvantages of
the prior art tend to result in high costs of the
structures.
An additional disadvantage of prior art railing
assemblies is that of poor on-site flexibility. For
instance, many of the structures of the prior art are
difficult to disassemble, owing to a clip-fit method of
assembly requiring prying apart the individual component
parts. Still others are poorly adaptable to architectural
configurations other than straight~line rails and railing
structures disposed in a strictly vertical plane.
It is therefore one object of the present
invention to provide a hand or guard railing assembly
requiring a minimum number of structural and connecting
components, thereby affording cost savings in relation to
manufacturing and transportation of the assembly.
Moreover, the simplicity of the arrangement according to
the present invention, having a total of only four
different constituent sub-assemblies, and requiring no
conventional fastening means for assembly, provides
greater ease of installation of the railing assembly
compared to other types of railing assemblies.
It is another object of the present invention to
provide greater on-site flexibility of the railing
assembly over that associated with the prior art. For
instance, the railing assembly according to the present
invention is more readily adaptable to curved
configurations and provides for easier disassembly
compared to existing railing structures.
According to a broad aspect of the invention there
is provided a railing assembly comprising a tubular top
rail, a tubular bottom rail, a plurality of support posts
and a plurality of rod members, the top rail having a
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bottom region containing holes for receiving the top ends
of said posts, the bottom rail having top and bottom
regions provided with aligned holes through which pass the
bottom ends of said posts, the bottom region of said top
rail and the top region of said bottom rail having
internal means defining longitudinally extending channels,
said rod members being slidably received in said channels
and passing through transverse holes through said posts~
A plurality of parallel vertical pickets may be
provided at predetermined locations between the support
posts, which pickets are slidably received in a slip-fit
aonnection by a corresponding plurality of holes disposed
at longitudinally spaced apart intervals respectively
along the undersurface of the top rail and the upper
surface of the bottom rail. Transverse holes are provided
near the upper and lower ends of the pickets for slidably
receiving the rod members which secure the pickets to the
top and bottom rails.
In another embodiment of the present invention,
one or more panel sections may replace the pickets and may
consist of tempered glass or any other appropriate sheet
material. Each panel section is supported and retained by
means of integrally formed pairs of parallel ribs,
outwardly located on each rail. The pair of ribs on the
upper rail are downwardly projecting and extend lengthwise
at least between two adjacent posts. The pair of ribs on
the bottom rail correspondingly are upwardly projecting
and extend longitudinally between the same two posts.
In yet another embodiment of the present
invention, the panel sections may be supported and
retained by integral slots inwardly disposed in each of
the top and bottom rails. The slots are formed by two
inwardly extending parallel vertical flanges and an
internal web member perpendicularly disposed thereto.
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In drawings which illustrake the embodiments of
the present invention,
FIGURE 1 is an isometric view showing one
embodiment of a railing assembly according to the present
invention;
FIGURE 2 is an end view of the railing assembly
shown in FIGURE 1;
FIGURE 3 is an enlarged end view of this
embodiment which better illustrates the components of
the assembly;
FIGURE 4 is a detailed isometric exploded view of
the embodiment showing a top railing, support post, picket
and rod member;
FIGURE 5 is a detailed isometric partially
sectioned view of the embodiment as depicted in FIGURE 4
and as fully assembled;
FIGURE 6 is a front elevational view of another
embodiment of a railing assembly according to the present
invention and having panel sections instead of pickets;
FIGURE 7 is a cross-sectional view of the top rail
of this other embodiment on a plane perpendicular to the
top and bottom rails thereof.
FIGURES 8~ 9 and 10 are end views of a top railing
showing different embodiments of joining pieces for
joining two rails together.
FIGURE 11, located on the same sheet of drawings
as FIGURE 7, is a cross-sectional view of the top rail of
yet another embodiment of the railing assembly according
to the present invention and having panel sections instead
of pickets, viewed on a plane perpendicular to the top and
bottom rails thereof.
Referring now to the drawings, FIGURES 1, 2 and 3
illustrate one particular embodiment of the present
invention consisting of a prefer~bly tubular extruded
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aluminium top rail 1 which is identical in nature and
substantially parallel to bottom rail 2. The assembly
comprises top and bottom rails 1 and 2 supported by a
plurality of spaced apart parallel vertical posts 3, only
one of which is shown in FIGURES 1 - 3. A plurality of
parallel vertical pickets 4 are arranged between adjacent
support posts 3. The posts 3 and pickets 4 preferably
have a circular cross-section, and may be formed from
solid or tubular material, preferably drawn or extruded
aluminium or any other structurally suitable material.
Details of the assembly will be described hereinafter.
Support posts 3 extend through holes through the bottom
rail 2 and are secured at the lower terminal ends 17
thereof to a supporting surface 5 by suitable attachment
1~ means 6 which are well known to those skilled in this art.
The details of the assembly arrangement of rails 1
and 2, support posts 3 and pickets 4 are best shown in
FIGURES 3, 4 and 5. The undersurface of top rail 1
contains, at longitudinally spaced apart intervals, a
plurality of radially disposed holes 9,12 which
respectively conform to the outer circumferences of
support posts 3 and pickets 4 in such manner as to permit
an intimate slip-fit connection with the upper terminal
ends of the posts and pickets. In like manner, the upper
surface of bottom rail 2 contains identical corresponding
holes 20,21 which are similarly adapted to receive the
lower terminal ends of posts 3 and pickets 4. Moreover,
the undersurface of bottom rail 2 contains a number of
longitudinally spaced apart holes 22 aligned with holes 20
disposed along the top surface thereof, which holes 20,22
permit the lower terminal ends 17 of posts 3 to extend
through lower rail 2 to the connecting means 6 as
aforesaid.
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The inner surfaces 18,23 of top and bottom rails
1,2 each include four pairs of opposed open flutes 7
running the entire length of the rails 1,2 and disposed at
90 intervals around the inner circumferences thereof.
The flutes are arcuate in cross-section and define
generally C-shaped channels. The lower flutes 15 of top
rail 1 and the upper flutes 24 of lower rail 2 slidably
receive at least one rigid connecting rod 10 preferably
composed of steel. The connecting rods 10 secure each
one of the posts 3 and pickets 4 to rails 1,2 through
paired openings 11, which are pre-drilled radially through
each of the upper and lower ends of the posts and pickets
3,4. FIGURE 3 illustrates the post 3 fitting between the
two opposing flutes 7 inside the railing 1 and 2. In some
instances the ends of the flutes 7 may have to be cut off
to fit larger diameter posts 3.
The remaining three pairs of flutes 7 of each rail
which do not receive a connecting rod allow for the
attachment of end caps to the rails by way of self-tapping
screws. Similarly, end plates may be appended to the
rails to allow for attachment of the rail assembly to a
wall or supporting column. Alternatively, the open flutes
may be provided with three corresponding short angle rods,
bent at 90, permitting mitered terminal ends of two
perpendicularly disposed rails to closely abut in a corner
configuration.
A further advantage of the provision of four
symmetrically disposed open flutes as aforesaid is to
promote the even bending of the top and bottom rails so
that the present embodiment is readily adaptable to curved
configurations. In such curved configurations, rigid
connecting rods 10 are replaced with sufficiently flexible
rods in order to permit easy passage of the rods through
the corresponding open flutes of the curved top and bottom
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rails.
The details of the assembly of the upper terminal
ends of posts 3 and pickets 4 to top rail 1 are
illustrated more fully in FIGURES 4 and 5. Paired
openings 11 are pre-drilled radially at a distance from
the respective terminal ends 8,14 of posts 3 and
pickets 4, permitting the upper terminal ends to bear
securely against the leading edges 16 of topmost flutes 19
of rail 1, as shown in FIGURE 5 or, in the case of larger
diameter tubing, against the inner surface 18 of rail 1.
Likewise, the position (not shown) of the paired openings
11 for the lower terminal ends of pickets 4 are determined
in such manner as to allow for the lower ends 25 (FIGURE
3) of pickets 4 to bear securely against the leading edges
1S 27 of lowermost flutes 26 of rail 2 or against the inner
surface 23 thereof. The position (not shown) of paired
openings 11 for the lower terminal surface ends of posts 3
may themselves be fixed by reference to the vertical
distance separating the upper radially paired openings
from the lower radially paired openings along the length
of any one of the pickets 4. The paired openings 11
closely conform to the cross-sectional profiles of rigid
connecting rods 10 to co-operably receive and engage same
in a slidable manner.
In another embodiment of the invention shown in
FIGURES 6 and 7, the pickets 4 normally disposed between
support posts 3 are replaced with a panel section 29. The
panel section may consist of tempered glass or any other
appropriate plate or sheet material. For particular
constructions calling for a curved railing assembly,
flexible sheet material such as that known by the trade
mark PLEXIGLAS is the preferred panel section material.
Details of the panel arrangement of this
embodiment are shown in FIGURE 7. Panel sections 29 are
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supported and retained by the use of integral paired
parallel ribs 28 which are downwardly projecting from top
rail 1 and extend longitudinally at least the distance
between two adjacent posts 3. Conversely, the
corresponding bottom rail 2 of this particular embodiment
(FIGURE 6) will contain similar paired ribs but projecting
upwards and extending a~ least the distance betweeen two
adjacent posts 3. Paired ribs 28 form a relatively deep
channel for accepting panel support clips 30 for securely
retaining the edge of panel section 29.
In yet another embodiment of the invention, the
panel section 29 and panel support clips 30 as described
above are supported and retained by integral slots which
are inwardly disposed in the top and bottom rails. As
shown more fully in FIGURE 11, the undersurface of top
rail 35 of this embodiment contains a downwardly facing
channelar slot 36 comprising two inwardly extending
parallel vertical flanges 37 and an internal web member 38
perpendicularly disposed thereto. The flange and web
members 37, 38 extend longitudinally the entire length of
the rail 35.
Top rail 35 includes at least three pairs of
opposed open flutes 39a, 39b, 39c likewise running the
entire length of the rail and de~ining generally C-shaped
channels. Two of such pairs 39a, 39b are provided at the
inner surface 40 of the rail 35 in a diametrically spaced
apart and horizontal relationship for supporting web
member 38. For instance, web member 38 may extend
horizontally between any two corresponding flutes of the
diametrically disposed pairs, as at 41 and 42. Web member
38 oontalns a plurality of holes (not shown) at
longitudinally spaced apart intervals aligned with similar
holes disposed on the undersurface of the rail, which
holes permit the terminal ends 8 of the support posts 3 to
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extend through the web member and abut against the inner
surface 40 of the rail.
A third pair of opposed open flutes 39c may be
provided adjacent either corner defined by the
intersection of parallel flanges 37 and web member 38 for
receiving connecting rod 10. In this embodiment, the
connecting rod 10 is not engaged radially through the
support posts 3, but is received by means of aligned
transverse holes laterally displaced in relation to the
diameter of the support posts.
The bottom rail of this embodiment (not shown) is
of identical construction as top rail 35, but providing an
upwardly facing channelar slot for the panel sections and
panel support clips as aforesaid. Additionally, as in the
other embodiments of the present invention previously
discussed, the undersurface of the bottom rail contains
longitudinally spaced apart holes to thereby permit the
lower terminal ends of the support posts to extend the
bottom rail to connecting means for attachment to a
support surface.
Referring now to FIGURES 8, 9 and 10, FIGURE 8
illustrates a vertical joining piece 31 which is used at a
joint between two sections of top rail 1 and bottom rail
2. Set screws 32 may be fitted in tapped holes 35 on the
underside of the rail to lock the joining piece 31 in
place. FIGURE 9 illustrates another form of joining piece
33 which is in the form of a cross and fits into the four
flutes 7, and FIGURE 10 shows a horizontal joining piece
34. At corners the different shapes of joining pieces may
be made into elbows or angles, and the railing out at the
appropriate angle to fit together.
Various changes may be made to the embodiments
shown herein without departing from the scope of the
present invention which is limited only by the following
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claims. For instance, the connecting rods 10 of the
embodiment described hereinabove may be provided in short
lengths as opposed to a continuous length equivalent to
that of the corresponding rail. Also by way of example,
the embodiments may be adapted to railing assemblies
having different angles of inclination.
