Help me find the right replacement caster. Who knew there were so many?

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Marc_G

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Hi folks,

Usually my ability to find products on the internet is pretty solid, but I'm struggling with this one. Yesterday, like an idiot, I stood on a (beefy) coffee table to be able to reach something above it. There was no doubt in my mind that the heavy wood table would support my weight. I forgot that the beefy table legs don't actually touch the floor, there are actually casters that hold the table up so that the table legs hover maybe 2 mm above the floor.

One of the casters ruptured as soon as I started climbing on the table. I need to find essentially an exact replacement, which is a bit tough because the caster is just 1" diameter. So, I started searching on Amazon and generally online for a swivel stem caster, 1" diameter twin wheel, non-threaded stem, no brake needed. See images below:

1675434140442.png1675434173962.png1675434226446.png

Stem is an inch and a half long above the swivel point and fits into an insert collar that holds it in the stem hole in the support foot.

Amazon has a tool to filter down the results but it works imperfectly; selecting swivel stem casters gave about 400 pages of results. Eventually I bought this one which is the closest I found in the first 15 pages of results:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BRD6784V/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=AF9CPILHGHOMP&psc=1
But the stem is only half as long as the original, and it doesn't look like it comes with fitted collars, so I probably can't reuse my current collar. It also has a brake, but I don't mind that.

Anyway, a plain nylon 1" twin wheel swivel stem caster shouldn't be so hard to find, and yet, this one is.

Any hints on how to get a closer match? I googled around and looked at various online stores without quite finding it. If I were in the market for a 2" caster it would be easy, but the size is critical since the table floats on the casters with the "feet" just off the floor.
 
It might be easier to just buy a set of four. Or, take the broken castor to an office supply store.

Luckily most casters in this size/duty class are sold in sets of 4 so it would be easy to replace all 4, but the critical part is that the new ones need to have stems/inserts that fit the hole in the support foot.

https://www.amazon.com/Skelang-Diam...f5-b92d-197b8ff17fd1&pd_rd_i=B082HKF8JN&psc=1
Here’s one with the right length stem. A set of four isn’t out of the question. The wheels are a little bigger.

Yeah, I saw those very ones. But they are too big wheels. The 1.5" wheel diameter would raise the table 0.25" which would look terrible because the "feet" of the table currently hover right over the floor surface without a visible gap; if you get your head down there you can see there's about two mm distance from the feet to the floor, based on the casters that are on their support feet recessed in a bit from the table corners. Raising the table a quarter inch would make the corner feet visibly above the floor. So, I need to stick with 1" casters.

The search goes on. I found a few caster stores online but didn't see quite the ones I need. If the ones I ordered do indeed ship with the insert collars, then I'm golden. If not, I can look into modifying the collar I've got from the broken one to fit the new one, I suppose. But this should be easy, and it frustrates me a bit that it isn't.
 
Part of the problem is that most furniture is made with cheap crap, custom made casters that were never meant to be replaced because the furniture was designed to wear out in 5 years.
 
Part of the problem is that most furniture is made with cheap crap, custom made casters that were never meant to be replaced because the furniture was designed to wear out in 5 years.
Sad but true. Actually, this thing is an expensive piece of furniture, pretty well built, but yes the caster is cheapo. That said, I definitely exceeded any reasonable weight support limit for that corner of the thing when I stepped up. I'm just lucky I didn't fall.

Further searching shows that a 1" variety of a grip stem swivel caster twin wheel style is pretty unusual. Starting at 1.5" it becomes common. I can either modify the current stem collar I have for the shorter stem ones I bought, or I can buy a similar wheel in threaded stem variety and adapt from that, or there's a more decorative wheel caster that should work and be the right size, so this isn't a crisis for me, it just pisses me off that it should be super easy, but isn't.

Appreciate everyone's attention!
 
Sigh. My casters arrived, and though they are fine "caster wise" the mounting stem is much shorter than the current one, and smaller diameter so I can't just modify the existing collar I have:

1675627901679.png

I will do some searches to see if I can find a stem collar that fits the new caster. If not I I will take it to the hardware store and see if I can find a T nut or some such that I can bodge into something that will work.

I've given up on finding the right caster... every site (even coolcasters mentioned above) has few offerings in 1", none of which is a perfect match.

EDIT: I've ordered these that look pretty close to what I need. I'm optimistic:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BKFZK36S/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=AFW951J7877QL&psc=1
 
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I'd look at McMaster Carr for these. They probably have them with pretty good technical descriptions and drawings, but you may pay more than Amazon for the info.
 
I'd look at McMaster Carr for these. They probably have them with pretty good technical descriptions and drawings, but you may pay more than Amazon for the info.
That was one of the first places I looked. They have no casters in 1" in anything close to the style I need, unfortunately. When I saw they didn't have it, I knew this was going to be a tough find.
 
Sockets were a fail. The ones delivered today didn't match the product description and were essentially duplicates of the one I already have. They are going back to Amazon.

Screw this. I'll just plug the hole in the support foot with a piece of dowel securely glued in, drill a hole properly sized for the stem caster I've got, fit it in, and call this done.
 
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