Casters are those small swivels affixed to the bottoms of heavy pieces of furniture that allow you to move that furniture when you need to. You may not think casters are very significant, but your lower back certainly does! Blickle Casters in Florida carries a wide range of casters and other equipment that’s designed to make the handling of heavy object and materials easier, and they ship to locations throughout the nation.
Looking at a Caster
Casters may resemble small wheels, but actually they are considerabls more complex. Casters consist of:
- A wheel tread
• A wheel core
• A fork
• Inner and outer raceways
• A top plate
• Ball bearings
• Various axle bolts and nuts that hold the device together
Some casters also include a locking mechanism that allows you to make sure your furniture pieces remain stationary unless you specifically want to move them. While most casters are designed to swivel, some are designed so that the objects they’re attached to will only move in a straight line. These devices are called “rigid casters.”
Attaching Casters to Your Furniture
Attaching casters to your furniture is a practical move because it will make it easier to rearrange those pieces should you want to clean behind them or try them out in a different corner of the room.
Securing a caster to the bottom of a piece of furniture involves drilling a hole in that surface. If you don’t want to damage your furniture, consider gluing a scrap of wood to the corners of that bottom surface before you begin the drilling process. Make sure the scrap is thick enough to contain the caster cylinder and to allow the caster wheel to protrude the optimal amount.
From there, it is just a simple matter of drilling the right-sized holes and following the caster manufacturer’s instructions for attaching the fork and raceways to the underside of your chair’s legs. If the piece of furniture you want to move is particularly heavy, then you might want to increase the number of casters you’re attaching to it from four to six.
