Back in the 1800’s it was common practice for every iron bed that was made, to have a set of casters. This was done for a couple of reason……First was the obvious one of the weight of the old iron beds was considerable , and casters made it much easier to move when cleaning under and around was necessary. The second reason was the size of many of the old rooms was very small…..so the beds would be pushed into the corner, making it near impossible to change the linens unless the iron
bed was temporarily wheeled away from the wall.
There seems to be a couple of obvious reasons using the old iron bed wheels wasn’t a good idea. Te first is that they were made of wooden wheels on a metal shaft, Over many years the wooden wheels would stop rotating , as they should, and instead need to be pulled along the floor. This would eventually ware a flat side to the wooden wheel. So rolling on the wheel became inpossible. The second draw back to using an old wooden iron bed wheel is the instability it gives a bed. The old wheels didn’t fit into the tubes very well and when they did, were quite unstale and loose.
I hope you’ve found this blog informative . I invite you to revisit my website
to answer any and all questions you might have about antique iron beds.
I also invite you to take a look at our company Face Book page for multiple photo albums on Custom Finishes, Canopy Conversions and a comprehensive “Before & After” King Conversions album.
