Aiming for millimetre perfection
James Neill, managing director of Norwich Glass, believes things don’t always quite measure up. “If you’re working off drawings or half-way through a build, the reality of construction means that things aren’t always delivered with mm accuracy, when in glass you’re always looking for a perfect finish,” he said. “That means that you need a level of adjustment in your hardware.”
A case in point is Norwich Glass’s recent installation for Porsche at Goodwood. Installed as part of the Festival of Speed, balustrading formed a key feature of the stand, fulfilling a critical safety function but also delivering clear sightlines to the cars being showcased.
“It was a challenging installation in the sense that we had to fit the balustrading to an uneven and imperfect surface,” James said. “It was essentially a wood and scaffolding platform, so we needed something which gave us a lot of flexibility to make adjustments and accommodate those imperfections.”
Norwich Glass specified Bohle’s modular and flexible EasyMount Vario base rail balustrading system, which is fully tested to BS6180:2011, and is suitable for floor or lateral mounting.
It delivers variable glass adjustment via a moveable base shoe. Accommodating glass thickness of 12mm to 21.52mm, combined with simple fitting requirements, it reportedly cuts installation time by as much as 30% over comparable systems.
The other significant benefit delivered by the EasyMount Vario is that this adjustment can be achieved from the balcony side alone, making installation not only safer but at lower cost.
“The adjustability and the strength that we got was key,” James said. “It allowed us to arrive on site at around 11am and complete the installation by 5pm, with a little bit of final adjustment the next day – so that’s 20m of balustrading in a little bit less than a day.”
