Fitting Shepherd Castors


  #1  
Old 10-10-16, 02:11 PM
G
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: UK
Posts: 10
Upvotes: 0
Received 0 Upvotes on 0 Posts
Fitting Shepherd Castors

I would appreciate a bit of advice please regarding the fitting of Shepherd Castors.
I have become the owner of a well built but surprisingly heavy leather covered office chair. The castors fitted to the four legs have small wheels that do not run well on the carpeted floor. I am therefore intending to remove them, provided I can pries them off the legs without damage to the legs, and replace them with plate fixed ball type Shepherd Castors.
I seem to have read that a set of four of these castors come as a pair described as left handed and a pair that are right handed. Furthermore, I understand that the castors should not be fitted such that both the right hand castors are on one side of the chair but are diagonal to each other. The same for the left hand castors. Is this correct and are left hand castors easily distinguishable from right hand castors? Thanks for reading.
 
  #2  
Old 10-10-16, 02:36 PM
chandler's Avatar
Banned. Rule And/Or Policy Violation
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: USA
Posts: 36,607
Upvotes: 0
Received 9 Upvotes on 8 Posts
Shepherd casters come in many configurations. Let us know what style you have in mind. I have not run into any that were side specific.
 
  #3  
Old 10-10-16, 03:29 PM
Handyone's Avatar
Member
Join Date: Aug 2000
Location: U.S.
Posts: 4,807
Upvotes: 0
Received 0 Upvotes on 0 Posts
I haven't seen any left and right shepherd castors.
The dual wheel type work pretty good. The chair will not move easily, but good enough.
 
  #4  
Old 10-10-16, 03:58 PM
F
Member
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Wet side of Washington state.
Posts: 16,321
Received 38 Upvotes on 30 Posts
I have never heard of left and right casters but I have heard of full caster and fixed wheel styles. The full caster swivels all around whereas the fixed design is straight line. Using both on one cart is often done to make steering the cart easier although somewhat less maneuverable. Combinations of fixed and full caster are never used on a chair.

Ball-style casters are used with relatively light loads when you want to move the load with the least amount of effort. Ball style have "point contact" with the floor so minimize the contact area and that reduces the friction. Unfortunately, with heavier loads the point contact can end up putting extreme loads on both the floor and the ball and destroy both in a relatively short time. Since learning this I never use ball style casters.

I recently replaced the casters on my office chair, it originally had all plastic dual-wheel casters mounted to the chair with "grip ring" vertical pins. Each caster had a weight load of maybe fifty pounds and what was happening was one wheel (on the two-wheel axle) would come off and leave the single wheel to dig into the floor. I replaced them with steel and rubber-tired casters, still using the grip ring vertical pin but the new casters have a load rating more than 50% higher than the original. The rubber tire is also easier on the floor as it has a lower weight loading per unit of area contact.
 
  #5  
Old 10-11-16, 01:28 PM
G
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: UK
Posts: 10
Upvotes: 0
Received 0 Upvotes on 0 Posts
Having looked harder I find that Shepard Castors are, it seems, handed. Shepherd Castors are sometimes referred to as Ball Castors and have a raised portion around the circumference of the ball which slopes. The fixing stem is behind the raised part and can either be on the L.H. side or R.H. side. As far as the U.K is concerned, when looking on line I find the most heavily advertised are those made by a firm called Kenrick. A batch of 4 castors can be purchased from prices below £10 though the cheaper ones are plastic and not metal
 
  #6  
Old 10-11-16, 03:13 PM
chandler's Avatar
Banned. Rule And/Or Policy Violation
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: USA
Posts: 36,607
Upvotes: 0
Received 9 Upvotes on 8 Posts
I have looked on several Kenrick sites, and none refer to the "handedness" of the casters. Can you give us a link?
 
  #7  
Old 10-12-16, 08:07 AM
G
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: UK
Posts: 10
Upvotes: 0
Received 0 Upvotes on 0 Posts
Fitting Shepherd Castors

chandler, Please see the link below.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kenrick-She...hepherd+castor

You will see it says : Pack of 4 (2 L.H & 2 R.H)
 
  #8  
Old 10-12-16, 10:46 AM
chandler's Avatar
Banned. Rule And/Or Policy Violation
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: USA
Posts: 36,607
Upvotes: 0
Received 9 Upvotes on 8 Posts
Not sure where LH casters will not become RH casters when the chair swivels. If you feel thr LH/RH set will be better, you have a source. Otherwise a normal 4pack of casters should work just as well.
 
  #9  
Old 10-13-16, 10:17 AM
G
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: UK
Posts: 10
Upvotes: 0
Received 0 Upvotes on 0 Posts
Fitting Shepherd Castors

I have emailed Kenrick's sales dept. in the hope they will shed light on the subject. If I get a reply I will add it to this thread. Meantime, thanks for taking the trouble to respond to my enquiry.
 
 

Thread Tools
Search this Thread
 
Ask a Question
Question Title:
Description:
Your question will be posted in: