Dresser Mouldings tendered for a contract to supply bespoke spindle & curved handrail sections, which were supplied in the original design to replace the old spindles & curves on the Southport marina.  The marina bridge was built originally around 1930 & it as stood the test of time. Originally the build was offered in either Cedar or FSC^® Iroko and although both these timbers were good timbers to use, they also were not without issues. Cedar was one of the timbers of choice, however, the spindles & handrails required bonding along with the time scale moisture in the material made this process of using cedar a bit risky.

Having reviewed the complexity relating to moisture remaining in the timber and the location Dresser Mouldings decided the only suitable timber they could offer would be Accoya^® FSC wood.

Having won the contract at Dresser they set out to produce the spindles as the first phase of the project with over 650 spindles required in the original design.

The spindle finished size was specified at an overall size of 144×144 bonded in two halves, glued using a special modified two part glue for external waterfront use. Once the material had been prepared, bonded & turned it then received its final coating before installation.

One of the more complex parts of the project was to produce curved radius handrails, these were both to be supplied horizontally & vertically & this required a great deal of planned detail & accurate geometry to ensure the correct rise over the walkway.

Sections were built & bonded to produce both hand & base-rails to a section size of 290×117 for the curved radius the section bonded needed to be much wider to obtain the curves required. Machining of the sections was manufactured using a Maka 5 axis CNC machine.