I want to put this beast of a desk up on casters and now is an opportune time to do it whist I am decorating. I am going to need four heavy duty casters with a M8 screwed stem. But as you can see I am spoilt for choice. http://www.rosscastors.co.uk/rosscontactus My question and a tricky one from my image is what sort of weight is this desk? It has a metal base with a 1400 x 800 x 30mm top. It did once have a drawer unit but that was a heavy beast in itself but that has been removed and also placed on casters and is used as a storage unit come cat bed. So anyone got a rough idea of the weight so I buy the correct supportive casters?
I would think any of the furniture castors they list would be fine, they all seem to have a minimum weight of 40Kgs, which should be more than enough assuming your fitting 4, 1 in each corner.
The weight looks reasonably well distributed across the desk (maybe shuffle the cases towards the middle of the desk for this, or take them off if you can weigh them separately). Take a nice sturdy bit of pipe, rebar or wood, of a good length (most of the way to the other side of the desk) to use as a lever. Slip it under the middle of one 'leg' of the desk. Put an object to use as a fulcrum under the piece of wood, near the desk end. Put a known weight on one of the the wood (2L water bottles work as 2Kg weights). Move the weight, and the fulcrum if needed, so your lever balances horizontally, supporting the desk off of the ground on one end and the weight on the other (with the lever only touching the fulcrum, not the ground). Measure the distance of the fulcrum to the desk leg, and the fulcrum to the weight. weight x weight-to-fulcrum distance = weight of the desk x desk-to-fulcrum distance x 1/2 (2 x weight x weight-to-fulcrum distance) / desk-to-fulcrum distance = weight of desk Terrible diagram: Desk weight = (2 x W x L2) / L1
Or go back to the 'joke' suggestion, use bathroom scales at one end and double. Provided you elevate the other end to be level with the scales and the weight is evenly distributed this should be plenty accurate for choosing castors Edited to punctuate irony
Or another alternative to the the joke suggestion of using bathroom scales would be the same way you weight a dog, weight yourself, weight yourself holding the dog (desk), subtract your weight from the total. Personally i would just use any old half descent casters that fitted, i mean what's the chances of the desk weighting more than your average person.
With all due respect I think you have a screw loose. The use of the word beast should have been a clue of to the size and weight of this desk and the idea that I could in some way support it whilst trying to mount a set of scales is frankly less possible than me pulling an eighteen year old blond bombshell millionairess.
You never know what's around the corner.... In all seriousness though, the bathroom scales can give you an idea. Or put it on it's end, then put the end of the desk onto the scales and that should give quite a good idea? CAVEAT: DO NOT USE GLASS SCALES!
I don't see how propping up one end on bathroom scales is a joke suggestion, certainly less so than providing nothing more than a photo and asking people to guess! Alternatively as already suggested, go with something with a 30-40kg capacity, as the weight of the desk and contents is certainly going to be under 120-160kg.
Someone might well have had a similar piece of furniture hence the image. I am happy with the 30-40KG estimate though.
I'd recommend these ones just to be sure - http://www.rosscastors.co.uk/container-castors-set-12-tonnes.html
I'd be a bit dubious as to whether or not they can take the load. I'd imagine it might just take it, but if you put a pint of beer on it the extra weight will probably take it over the edge and you'll end up with beer everywhere, in your pc and exploded.
Damn I missed those. They look ideal as well. The ones I have bought can only support a mere 225kgs in total. I wonder if I have done the right thing?