Patent ID: 8042310

Claim:
A fastening member for fastening a plurality of decorative external panels to underlying panels at the time of disposing the plurality of decorative external panels in front of a plurality of underlying panels disposed in front of a construction frame of a building, the fastening member, comprising: a base plate having an upper edge, a lower edge and a rear surface which comes into contact with the underlying panel; a plurality of supporting portions all aligned in a plane and frontwardly protruded from the base plate and configured to support a lower side of an upper side decorative external panel; an upper panel engaging portion upwardly extended from a front end of the supporting portions at opposite respective edges of the base plate and configured to be engaged with a lower side of the upper side decorative external panel; and a lower panel engaging portion downwardly extended from the front end of the supporting portions formed between the supporting portions at the opposite respective edges of the base plate and configured to be engaged with an upper side of a lower side decorative external panel, the base plate having a first screw hole and a second screw hole differing in distance from the supporting portions, the first screw hole and the second screw hole being located above the supporting portions, the base plate having a spring portion frontwardly protruded from the base plate so as to increasingly separate from a plane of the base plate in a downward direction and configured to come into contact with a rear side surface of the decorative external panel to frontwardly press the decorative external panel, wherein a first base plate portion of the base plate in which the first screw hole farther away from the supporting portion is formed and a second base plate portion of the base plate in which the second screw hole closer to the supporting portion is formed, forming an obtuse angle between the first base plate portion and the second base plate portion, the first base plate portion having an upper edge defined by the upper edge of the base plate and the second base plate portion having a lower edge defined by the lower edge of the base plate; wherein the first base plate portion is inclined rearward with respect to the second base portion toward an upper side of the first base plate portion, and wherein when a screw is inserted into either the first screw hole or the second screw hole to fasten the fastening member to the underlying panel, the upper edge of the first base plate portion and the lower edge of the second base plate portion can be brought into contact with the underlying panel assuredly.