They say necessity is the mother of invention and so it is in our shop. Last year we were fortunate enough to win a project for 750m of floating walkway to an industrial installation. Once we had finished the high fives routine, somebody said, “do you realise we need to weld up 1.5km of handrails?”. Right then I know we needed a better way. This is because every handrail section was 3m long to match the floating modules and every section was a series of pipes, placed in a jog, them manually TIG welded to achieve the strength and finish required.

Hence the Edge™ was born. This system clips into the dogbones on the UMD system and locks in simply with a coach screw. The rails slip in with end caps cleverly designed to have an inner and outer curve so that they complement each other at joins. Without this, the joins will hit each other or create pinch points, so the design is both functional and aesthetic. To finish off the offering a kick rail is fitted to bolt into each staunchion. The first project with this system was well received and welcomed due to the ease of use and the added benefit of a high visibility yellow colour.

Next came the request for the same functionality on land and not just floating. Buoyed with our recent success, the R&D team produced a concept and we asked our customers how they felt about it. The feedback was incorporated and a mould completed to allow rotomoulded samples to be supplied. The mockup worked perfectly and also allowed a colour choice to be made. The first project is using a dark Monument Grey post with mill finish aluminium railings. The railings are angled to prevent climbing on the structure while still allowing for curves and angles to interlink the system.

The use of Rotomoulding technology in providing a safe system of edge protection makes commercial sense. This process provides strong posts through a deep web design, high numbers of colourful choices without additional painting or coating costs, a corrosion free surface and a much lighter unit that is colour through.

Superior Edge is a new application of a tried and proven technology. We are pretty excited about it and I’m thrilled to share this with our blog readers first. If you would like to try it out sometime, give me a shout and we would love to give a live demo.

John