Modding swivel chair feet to not damage flooring

This forum section is called "Modding and Hacking - Consoles and Electronics". I know this isn't console or electronics but it is modding. If the wrong section, i'm sure the topic will be moved!

Anyway, I am sure most of us have swivel chairs in our project rooms and are aware of this problem. You need a chair that swivels however most of the time you don't actually need to move the chair as could just swivel the chair to get in and out easily. Castors are fitted on all such chairs and they dig into carpet ruining it after a while, or damaging hard floors if you use that instead. Some castors are wider than others however the surface area is tiny compared to the weight of the chair and person sat on it, which quickly causes indents in a carpet and weakens carpet if the castors move.



One common remedy is to use a chair mat. You can get PVC (which cracks) and polycarbonate (far better but still can crack). Problems are they claim to retain on the carpet however certainly in my experience the matting moves around, also the feel of plastic on my feet is not desirable.



Also, doesn't look great on carpet.

So, the aim is to replace the castors with something that has a flat surface with large surface area. Looked at ones you can get but they are only about 50mm diameter, which means they will still indent into the carpet, while better, not a great solution.

So, here is the mod.

Worked out the largest discreet size I could have the 5 bases to replace the castors, which will give great coverage but not poke out much, at 150mm diameter. Managed to save a lot of time and effort by sourcing 18mm thick MDF on ebay, pre-cut to 150mm circles.



The castors from the chair remove easily.



The diameter of the metal rod is 11mm, so bought a wooden rod 12mm, 300mm long, to cut into 10 pieces.



...then use a craft knife to slice it down enough to fit snugly into the chair hole





Next job is simply to drill a hole in the wood so each circle can be screwed into place. The unit is still removable however firmly secured.

Made hole in first circle and for screw head to recess.



Going to complete the work over the weekend.

The result is comparable to the surface area of the castors being similar to about 4 keys on your computer keyboard, compared to a surface area similar to about 1 1/4 full sized computer keyboards.

The result will mean the carpet will not be damaged, if I want to move the chair I can do so, and can remove the polocarbonate sheet (which was expensive BTW) entirely making my room look nicer and also remove the issues I have at the moment. I won't need to paint the MDF as it is similar to the colour of the carpet.

I'll upload photos when this quick project is completed.

Total cost for one chair is about £18 a chair; and about 2 hours work to make.

This is the benefit of being a modder, even if unrelated to what you are doing (eg this), it allows you to think out of the box and make a solution; also happy rather than throw something away that no longer works to open it up and try and fix first.

 

I have mat for my chair, it has spikes to grip the carpet and it's been there for over 10 years. No sign of crack and hasn't moved on its own. It wasn't cheap, around $50 for it back then.

 

Yeah, mine has spikes on them (as per photo) however the mat still moves a bit, as my sheet is about 2m x 1.2m the sheet moving pulls against the units and separates them a bit which is annoying. Need it that long. I paid about £65 for each sheet, quite thick polycarbinate I had to import from Germany; however it has cracks in the middle in places. That's why i'm making my own, fed up with what I have.

 

Completed the work:

Made hole in the circles

Drilled to bore a hole in the rods

Screwed together

Result

Then popped into the chair recesses

Job done.

Works well. Removable if need to as well.

 

Nice idea. I'm putting up with one of those mats, since I prefer to be able to move my chair while sitting in it. Looks like that might be hard to do with this mod (unless maybe you use very smooth wood and round off the edges?). How's that working for you? Still possible?

 

Chair easily moves as the wood is flat (MDF), you just lift it up slightly and slide. When sat down though the chair stays put, which is what is needed.

Put this mod on Instructables, it got featured in the Home section, which is nice. http://www.instructables.com/id/Replace-castors-on-swivel-chair/

 

I think this is an excellent idea. Maybe if one were to use this on hard floors they could use a felt of some kind on the bottom so it's safe to use on wood and other hard flooring instead of those plastic castors. I don't have one of those mats sadly, and it's making a mess of the carpet when I want to do some (poor) soldering work. This would work wonders

 

Absolutely, glue some felt to the underside (don't staple), would work well on laminate flooring.

In the house I lived in previously, the carpet was short and there was only a sheet as underlay so the carpet wasn't springy (as the carpet we have now) - after a few years the carpet in the house got weak and a bit stripy due to the castors running over the carpet; ruined it. Not an issue now.

Positioned the chair so one of the 5 legs are between my feet when in the chair so I won't catch the MDF. To get in, just swivel the chair lifting feet slightly. First time I used the chair caught my heel on the wood, not done that since. If was a problem I would have used a strip of silicone or rubber around the circumference of the bases, however no point as not needed.

Used it a few days now, very happy with it, and also looks nice in the room, far better than before.

Thank you Digmac for the "likey" too.