Patent ID: 7824593

Claim:
A method of manufacturing a moving handrail for a passenger conveyor, the method comprising: inserting ends of a multilayered belt into a cavity of a mold, opposing and spaced apart from each other, the multilayered belt including a metallic tension member and a canvas molded in a thermoplastic resin, the metallic tension member and the canvas extending substantially continuously along a moving direction of the passenger conveyor; connecting mating portions of the metallic tension member and connecting mating portions of the canvas, at the ends of the multilayered belt; inserting a thermoplastic resin in a solid phase, as a bonding resin, into a region between the ends of the multilayered belt; after inserting the thermoplastic resin in the solid phase, heating the thermoplastic resin in the solid phase so that the thermoplastic resin becomes a fluid bonding resin; while maintaining the fluid bonding resin in the fluid phase, applying external pressure to the fluid bonding resin, including maintaining external pressure on the bonding resin using a pressure maintaining unit, the pressure maintaining unit including a reservoir communicating with the cavity of the mold and containing an additional quantity of the thermoplastic resin as additional bonding resin and in a fluid phase, a pressure transmitting member that transmits pressure from the additional bonding resin in the fluid phase in the reservoir to the bonding resin in the cavity of the mold, an urging unit that urges the pressure transmitting member toward the additional bonding resin in the fluid phase in the reservoir, and an urging force adjusting unit that adjusts an urging force applied to the urging unit; and thereafter, reducing the temperature of the fluid bonding resin to a temperature less than a flow-starting temperature of the bonding resin when in the solid phase, while maintaining pressure on the bonding resin until the bonding resin cools, completing splicing of the ends of the multilayer belt.