Castors That Rock N' Roll

By Author: Louise Horne
Total Articles: 15
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Any touring rock and roll band transports with them a phenomenal amount of equipment, from staging, lighting and musical instruments to sound equipment, mixing and control decks. Touring bands and their roadies know the benefits of using heavy duty flight cases to transport the equipment from show to show. Flight cases can be custom made for specific uses varying from transporting sound equipment, lighting and even musical instruments. These cases are manufactured with shock absorbing foam to protect their sensitive contents. These heavy duty cases are mounted upon heavy duty castors which make them easy to move on and off the stage. Castors used on these rock band flight cases must be hard wearing, as they are often exposed to heavy wear and tear and extreme loads of weight.

With punishing tour dates, and potentially playing concerts held at different ends of the country night after night, rock and roll bands need to ensure their equipment can be built and dismantled in short periods of time. Their preference is to have heavy duty flight cases mounted on castors, to ensure ease of movement, flexibility and quick turnarounds. ...
... Often a requirement of a venue is that these cases must have non marking wheels. For many years the castors fitted to flight cases housed a standard nylon or rubber wheel. More recently, developments with materials, has meant a blue elastic non marking rubber wheel is the preferred choice for case manufacturers. Not only do these castors not mark the floors and stages of arenas and venues, they are also a quiet wheel, reducing the noise of the flight cases as they are frantically moved around.

Flight case castors are manufactured to be quiet, and not to mark floors. They are also designed to be highly manoeuvrable. Being swivelling castors has meant the castors rotate in a three hundred and sixty degree turning circle. This flexibility and rotation increases manoeuvrability of the flight cases, making the roadies job a little easier! Swivelling castors can also be lockable castors. Adding an accessible foot brake onto these swivelling castors ensures the cases can be locked in the position required by the production team. Replacement flight case castors are available, and are an affordable alternative to replacing an expensive new one. The non marking blue rubber castor with a four inch wheel tends to be the most popular choice for replacement castors.

Flight cases can be used not only within the music industry for touring bands but also within a range of other industries from television, photography, the military, medical applications and aviation. Weather resistant cases have been a recent development and this requires the castors and cases to be temperature and water resistant. These cases are suitable for outdoor applications from sport and recreation to fire and emergency services. Stainless steel castors offer a suitable resistant castor housing that does not rust over time. Flight cases by their nature are required to be heavy duty and yet extremely mobile in a variety of environments. Castors have enabled these hard working cases to keep on moving!