Timber Handrails With LED Lighting

Haldane UK has manufactured superb timber handrails manufactured from American Black Walnut and featuring integrated LED handrail lighting for the Dakota Hotel.

Haldane added its touch of class to this contemporary styled hotel in Farnborough with a 65 x 50mm elliptical handrail manufactured in American Black Walnut.

Haldane also machined a groove in the wall side of the handrail to enable a continuous strip of LED lighting to be concealed, providing a subtle yet stunning effect for the feature staircase.

Haldane’s Managing Director, Forrester Adam, said “LED lighting is becoming more popular in staircase design and our 5 axis CNC capability enables us to incorporate the groove into the same machining programme. This ensures 100% integrity, particularly in continuous handrails, and slashes the time required to complete the project.”

Due to the constraints of the project, Haldane worked closely with the metalwork and GRG contractors to enable the entire handrail to be manufactured without carrying out a physical survey of the project.

To enable the handrails to be manufactured without the survey being carried out, the architect supplied detailed 3D CAD drawings with a guarantee that the exact finish of the walls would match these specifications. Haldane UK ‘s programmers were able to work with these drawing and convert them into the machine programmes required to produce the actual handrails.

Forrester explained, “As is often the case with projects in the hotel and retail sector, timescales can become extremely tight. On this particular contract, the challenge was enhanced due to the construction of the stair which prevented the brackets from being fitted to the stair until the handrail was put together on site.”

This meant that the GRG cladding had to be removed from the metalwork when in situ to enable the brackets to be welded to the metalwork in the correct locations. The GRG was then re-applied to allow the LEDs and the handrails to be fitted before finishing with 2 coats of lacquer.

Forrester continued, “We normally insist on carrying out a survey prior to production to ensure a perfect fit first time, however this contract was slightly unusual and as we had the architects guarantee backed up with our highly skilled installation team we were confident that any small imperfections could be smoothed out on site.”