carchaeology: 10/10/19

Thursday, October 10, 2019

Flat File -- Checking for how to mount some casters

Took all the drawers out to get access to the inner side of the cabinet's bottom surface. The bottom is mostly open bu there's a flat surface around the edges of the cabinet that the casters can be mounted to. It's a little over 2 inches wide but that's just enough for the small casters that I bought for the purpose.

The corner where the caster will be mounted. There's four spot welds in the area.

Closeup showing the caster mounting location and the spot welds.

Looking at the same corner where the caster will be mounted from inside of the cabinet. Only two of the spot welds are visible. There's a closed off box section on the inside that is structural and is the mounting point for the drawer rails. There's no access to the inside of this box section so a nut & bolt setup will not work. Will have to use a large sheet metal screw for two of the holes.

This is a picture showing the box structure that completely closes in the corner area.

The caster needs to have about a 1/2" spacer so that it can completely rotate. If it was mounted directly to the flange, the wheel would interfere with the edge that hangs down. One way to avoid this interference would be to move the caster away from the corner but the hollow center makes this less desirable. It may be possible to mount the caster this way with just three of the mounting holes but I'm concerned that this would be too weak...

Removing the rest of the headset assembly from the Miele bicycle

Previously, I had removed the gooseneck and got the top headset nut & washer off.

The top and bottom bearing races that are pressed into the frame's headtube were pushed out using a round tube and a hammer to push them out from inside the frame. It took a little time to go evenly around to push them out straight but was not too difficult. There's a special tool for removing the races (made by Park Tools) but this alternative method works OK if you are patient.

To get the bottom race off of the fork, Park Tools makes a special puller tool. But, not having that tool, you can also work it off the fork by using a hammer and a chisel with a rounded edge (not too sharp) to work it off by hitting it from alternate sides and locations. This was more awkward to do because you're holding the fork upside down and working the hammer and chisel at the same time (need three hands). But, I was able to get it off without damaging anything.