How to deal with broken, scratchy castors on Victorian chairs

Hello - my first post here. I recenty bought some Victorian dining chairs which happily turned out to be Lamb Manchesters, so I'm keen to look after them. But the castors are in a terrible state - several are already scratching my floor, while one is collapsed & dragging. All but one seem to old rubber ones (possibly original?).

My question is just: what's the best way to replace them? Should I be searching for a specific type ('Round Ferrule' perhaps?); are they sold in standard sizes; are they easy to whip out; should I go for a specific material / salvaged or reproductions?

I do need to protect my floor but am really worried about causing harm to the chairs. I was also wondering if little rubber cups might be a good idea (as I presume even the best castors will still cause superficial scratches?)

Any advice very welcome! Thanks

 

Those casters are kind of unusual looking, with that little stripe. Is that what's causing the abrasion?

I frequently see casters in all kinds of antique shops, usually boxes full. The hard thing to do is get matching casters for all of your chairs. I've bought matching sets of 4 on E-Bay. They do come in different sizes, although they adhere to standards within those sizes. Casters for chairs shouldn't be that difficult, depending on the source. You may have to take it up a notch and deal with a good furniture/architecutural salvage concern to get a bunch that match.

 

I have hardwood floors too and casters are a big NO for me. I've taken the casters off (save them of course) and installed felt pads bought from Home Depot.

 

Im not convinced those arent replacements themselves. Like Rayo said,yank those things off and save the floors !

 

In the bottom part of the picture, it looks to me like that hard 'rubber' caster is riding on whatever metal is sticking down and causing that "white" stripe that @Ghopper1924 is talking about.....the other caster looks to be brass....both should be easily removable.....just carefully!! Personally, I hated them and kept them off after I removed them.....we usually had carpets/rugs down, so no problem, but your choice on how you want to handle it!

 

I was approaching the question from an aesthetic point of view. My thought is to always keep the piece as close to its original appearance as possible. Of course, if the casters are destroying the floor and you don't care whether the chairs have them or not, by all means remove them! They're your chairs and your floors.

We've got hardwoods as well, but if a piece has/had casters, then I want them restored. But it's not like I'm dragging furniture around on a daily basis.

Strangely enough we recently had a thead on this topic:

https://www.antiquers.com/threads/casters-and-antique-furniture.44743/

 

Hey thanks for the replies I'm with Ghopper on wanting to keep things authentic wherever possible. But this is my first ever experience with casters and they're deadly little buggers - I'm beginning to think they're just not compatible with daily use of the chairs. It seems these ones aren't actually original as well, as there's more screwholes than there would be for one instalation.

Was hoping to find modern casters that look old and are extra soft on flooring, but a quick scan of Amazon, eBay & Google is pretty disappointing. Bottom line I don't think there's much demand for replacements!

So I reckon it'll be felt pads / equivalent. My only problem now is the casters add about 4cm to the height of the front legs. Is it easy to get brassy / wood "stumps" with the replacement feet? (And if the existing screwhole is too big for the new part, what's the best course of action? Woodfiller on an antique feels wrong & might not withstand regular use anyway)

 

You might try the elevated felt pads that Rayo showed. Unfortunately, keeping them from falling out may require a permanent adhesive, but there it is. There are also metal caps you can use, and probably other things as well.

 

Hi,
I use the press and stick ones (pads). They last a long time and easy to replace. That way I do not damage the piece or my floors. My one ottoman had casters that did not fit. I just wrapped a few rounds of newsprint to tighten them up.
greg

 

Yeah, dining chairs with casters are bad news for wood floors as they are constantly in motion in a very small area. They do make converters that replace casters, nice feature is they don't alter the seat height, the trick is to find them with the same diameter pin.

 

Sees your caster pins/stems are threaded which complicates things a bit.

 

If there are holes in the bottom of your chair legs to accommodate the casters then just find wooden dowel rods the same diameter of the hole then cut and glue them into place (to fill the hole)