Most people are unaware of what a castor is, when they see one, however, they might refer to it as a wheel. Oh, how wrong they would be, a castor is much more than that and in the likely event that you don’t want to get your castors or wheels in a twist, here are the reasons why.
Castors
Castors do actually include a wheel; however, they have a little something extra. A castor is an assortment of wheel and securing bracket which would be used to secure the wheel to some kind of base using screws or bolts. Without the bracket, the wheel would simply not attach to anything, therefore giving us our answer.
The main difference between a castor and a wheel is the attached bracket. As such, if you are wanting to exchange a “wheel” on the bottom of your seat or trolley, you probably want to be asking for a castor assembly, not just a wheel.
With this in mind you want to be sure to be searching for a castor when trawling the Internet or instead of ‘trawling’ you could visit Richmond Wheel and Castor Co, a local supplier of all sorts of specialised goodies.
Castors are usually found attached to the underneath of a piece of moveable equipment, without them your equipment probably wouldn’t move very far… When searching, you may notice different varieties. Usually, you would see two just four available assembly styles;
- Flat plate mounted – Has a flat plate with holes for bolts or screws.
- Lock in – Stem mounted – Has attached thread.
- Fixed – The attached wheel will always be facing the same way.
- Swivel – The attached wheel can be in a full 360⁰ rotation.
Wheels
Hopefully, we all know what a wheel is, a simple machine that is round with a hole in the middle so that it can be attached to an axle. They can be used for almost any purpose you need, as long as it means rolling in one direction or another.
However simple it may seem, the creation of the wheel, around 5000 years ago has completely transformed the way we have been able to move ourselves and objects from one place to another. Without the wheel things like cars, bikes, and so on would never have been what they are today.
What is more important for people these days is what their wheel is made from, what it looks like and of course, what it has around it, be it a tyre or something solid.
