Introduction: For the Safety of the Office Mate

About: I work as software engineer in one of Bay Area (California) companies. Whenever I have a time I like to program micro controllers, build mechanical toys, and make some home improvement projects.

Here is our eighteen months old corgi. I share my home office space with him. If you pay enough attention you'll find that arm chair, next to which dog lays, does not have wheels. I had to get rid of them to provide safety for the dog . Easy to say but not so easy to do. Office chairs with no wheels do not exist. I could not find one neither in local stores, no online. But this is a reason to apply DIY craft, right? I have to modify my old office chair.

Supplies

Here are some supplies I bought in local Home Depot, namely drywall anchor and felt glide. Usage of glide with felt pad is obvious, but what drywall anchor doing here? This is crucial part of the project and that's what allowed me to submit this project into Unusual Uses contest. By experimenting I have found that anchor fits nicely into opening where chair wheel usually resides.

Step 1: Design

Here you can see design sketch of the project. I hope it is self explainable.

Step 2: Replacing Wheels With Drywall Anchors

First I removed wheels. That was relatively easy to do. I just needed to pull them out hard enough. I measured deepness of the opening in the leg and found that anchor a little bit long. I had to cut tips of anchors with metal hacksaw. Then I threaded anchors into the openings with screwdriver.

Step 3: Making Stands

Body of each stand I made out of wooden post taken from broken hat hanger. I cut five cylinders out of that post. Then I drilled cylinders through whole length with 5/32 '' bit and after that I drilled wider hole with 11/32 bit only through half length. I put anchor screws inside narrow holes so at least half of anchors crew will be outside of stand and then taped plastic glide sockets into wide holes. I painted stands with dark finish to match chair color.

Step 4: Attaching Stands to Chair Legs

Inner opening of glide socket is wide enough to insert screwdriver to thread stands to anchors.

Step 5: Installing Felt Gliders

Final and easiest step was to thread glides into sockets.

Step 6: Ready to Use

Now my office mate my occupy any place in the office he wants. I never will harm him by accidently rolling the chair fast. But if needed I may slowly glide chair over hardwood floor.