Kingpinless casters, as the name suggests, are casters that lack a kingpin. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? What is the purpose of the kingpin, and why would you remove it? Read on to find out.

The kingpin is a feature found in most light to heavy duty swivel casters, though it is generally not used in ultra-light duty casters such as chair casters. It is essentially a rivet, and its job is to hold the top plate and the fork of the caster together, allowing for a ball bearing housing between the two units that in turn allows the caster to swivel properly. The kingpin also tends to be a weak point in situations that put heavy stress on the caster, such as shock loading. In these cases, the kingpin can bend or even break, allowing the ball bearings to fall out and causing caster failure.

The answer to this caster failure is the kingpinless caster. Kingpinless casters are precisely engineered and machined to allow swiveling without a kingpin. The lack of the kingpin removes the casters’ typical weakest link, and provides a casters that can handle shock loading and heavy stress without failure.

Most kingpinless casters are only available at the heavy and extra heavy duty levels of casters, since the easier-to-produce a king pinned casters  can handle light and medium duty jobs with ease.

Need help choosing a kingpinless caster?  Give us a call at 800-215-8220 today.

Did you know you’re not stuck with the cheap plastic casters that come with every office chair ever made? There are many options for replacing the casters, and, below we’re going to give a quick rundown on what information you’ll need to make an informed decision.

The first thing you will need to know is the stem size of your current casters. To find this out, you will have to remove the stem from the chair. From there, check out of our How to Measure Caster Stems page for more information. This is a very important step as casters may have several styles of stem as well as use either imperial or metric standards.

After that, determine the primary location of use. Will it be on a low pile carpet? Plastic or glass chair mat? Hardwood or tile floor? This information is critical for determining the right wheel material. On carpet, nylon or metal wheels are acceptable. On hard surfaces, especially damaging surfaces like hardwood, you want to get a soft wheel like neoprene, thermoplastic elastomer (synthetic rubber), or urethane. Soft rubber is also an option, but it may leave unsightly black marks on flooring where other soft treads will not.

From this point on, the choices are primarily aesthetic. Hooded or unhooded? If hooded, perhaps a color other than black, such as the windsor antique or bright brass? These choices won’t affect the functionality, but may be far more pleasing to the eye than the original casters.

Take a look at our online selection of casters online or give us a call at 1-800-215-8220 to speak with a sales person about all the available options.