Semi-Centennial casters

[Jim Fitzgerald]

Louis -- thanks for the tip. I have some of those felt pads somewhere, I'll give that a try. And Jim, glad I could save you a bit of leg work tracking these down.

Thanks, I do appreciate it!

[Jimmy Mathis]

Guyatou,

I just picked up a semi-centennial stand without casters. Thank you so much for the links to the casters/inserts.

Louis,

Thanks for the felt pad tip.

Cheers,
Jimmy

[williaty]

It's my turn to try to source a caster for a 1A. Did any of you actually end up ordering the casters recommended by Guyatou in post #17? If so, did the combination of cap and caster work properly for you?

Thanks as always.

[williaty]

After a long back-order, my casters and cups arrived today.

I ordered the cups listed above and they fit the front two wheel locations perfectly. The rear location required a little filing of the rough casting to get the seam (you'll see what I mean if you look at the rear wheel position on one of these) to meet up a little tighter and then I still had to wrap the cup in a 0.010" thick brass strip all the way around the cup to get it to snug up tightly.

I did not order the casters listed above, though I did order ones dimensionally identical to them. The casters listed above have no proper bearings in them and are also non-braked. I ordered casters with actual ball bearings in them and with total-locking brakes. They fit properly and the stand rolls around very easily. To use the total-locking feature, I drilled and tapped the stand for an additional set screw on each front wheel receiver. I drilled a clearance hole in the cup and then filed a flat on the stem of the caster. The new set screw passes through the cup and bears directly on the flat on the stem of the caster, which prevents the stem from rotating. This allows the total-locking brake to prevent the caster from swiveling, which means the stand can't shift at all even if you bump it (normal swiveling casters would allow the stand to swing side to side as they rotated even if they didn't roll anywhere).

And, of course, the original lever brake on the stand isn't even close to touching the floor. I'll need to make an extension for it eventually.