Curved Glass Balustrades
To price your balustrade requirement first choose the shape most similar to yours
Cost Effective Bending
Balconette’s ability to bend the railings and glass is one of the advantages we offer to our customers. Typically, curving balustrades can significantly increase the cost due to the expensive nature of curved glass and the bending process. However, we provide our systems at a competitive price, even when they are curved.
Technical Limitations
Radius Limitation
Each project is custom-made to the exact radius required for that specific job, and we can curve balustrades to a variety of radii. However, there is a minimum radius that we consider as the lower limit, which is 1500mm (1.5 meters) to the inside of the handrail.
For anything with a smaller (tighter) radius than that, we tend to reject it. It's not that creating smaller radii is impossible, but tighter radii come with other challenges. The reasons we prefer not to work with smaller radii include:
- Glass becomes more problematic on smaller radii. The glass will always have a slight straight edge, so the smaller the radius, the more the straight edge becomes an issue during installation.
- Smaller radii are usually much more difficult to bend and result in larger distortion factors. The outcomes are not as satisfactory as with larger radii. However, we are open to reviewing any inquiries that involve smaller bends and will evaluate the job on a case-by-case basis.
Balustrades with handrails
Both Aerofoil & Orbit systems are “bendable” and can be supplied in curved configurations. Curved handrails have an extra aesthetic appeal and are much nicer than segmenting corners. (think fifty P coins…)
Here’s a video showing the bending process at our factory:
We can bend anodised profiles but recommend using powder-coated handrails as they have the least impact on the paint, and they can be easily touched up if necessary.
Here’s a video showing the anodised curved handrails in detail.
Frameless Curved Balustrades
For curved frameless balustrades we bend the bulky bottom rail, and due to the difficulty of bending such a bulky section it is recommended and offered only as a BFFL (below finished floor) installation, where the bottom rail will be covered and hidden.
Glass types that we offer curved
Most types of glass that are available in flat panels can also be supplied in curved forms for radiused balconies. This includes the standard 10mm Clear glass, various tinted options, as well as opaque and laminated glasses.
For the Orbit & Aerofoil systems we offer 10mm curved & toughened glass. And for the Frameless curved balustrades we offer 21.5mm curved laminated & toughened.
