Corner modules and articulate connectors for balustrade handrail constructions and constructions incorporating the same, and methods for partial factory pre-fabrication and for on-site fabrication and installation of the same

摘要

Corner modules have recessed, handrail-receiving mounting pockets bounded top and laterally by non-recessed boundary edge portions, but open at their bottom ends, and vertically taller than the end face of the handrail interval of steepest incline. The mounting pockets of the corner modules are factory-produced with very neatly made edges, whereas the end faces of handrail intervals are cut on-site for a particular installation, and tend to have cutting imperfections at the end face edges, such as chips, splinters, burring, edge waviness, etc. The handrail intervals, having underfaces with longitudinal slots, are mounted on baluster tops provided with articulate flanged connectors having tabs fitting firmly but slidably into the underface slots; thus the handrail intervals can be adjusted until they assume their needed relative positions, whereupon screws passing through holes in the flanged connectors penetrate the handrail underface deep within an underface slot. If re-positioning requiring new screw locations is necessary, the previous screwholes are hidden because located deep within such slots. Each corner module is pushed down from above into position on the ends of associated handrail intervals to be joined, its mounting pockets increasingly accepting and accommodating such ends, the non-recessed top and lateral boundary edge portions of the mounting pockets covering and hiding cutting imperfections at the end faces of the associated handrail intervals. If a particular corner module has a vertically measured excess of material at its bottom, the latter is severed before or after mounting of the corner module.