Barber Chair Quality Concerns

By Author: Paul Keller
Total Articles: 15
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Shopping for Barber Chairs

When shopping for barber chairs you need to take a lot of quality and reliability factors into account. The main SAFETY factor is the diameter and steel thickness of the barber chair base plate. A round chrome base plate should be a minimum of 660mm in diameter (26.2 inches) and a steel thickness of about 1/8 of an inch (.100 to .125 inches). Many barber chair manufacturers are using undersized all-purpose chair pumps and bases (600mm = 24 inches) for barber chairs with disastrous results. This makes for an unsafe condition and poor reliability since the base is too small, the steel thickness is too thin and the pump disc eventually fractures at the pump bolt connections. Not only is the pump base too small, but to offset that fatal error, they moved the pump to the chair mounting bracket toward the rear of the chair; this prevents it from flipping over backwards when in the reclined shaving position. However this causes the chair to flip forward if you slide forward on the seat during a normal haircut. I had another manufacturers chair here and I could not even sit normally in the ...
... chair without it flipping it forward. I have no clue how someone could ever sell a barber chair of such poor design.

Barber Chair Hydraulic Pumps

Barber chair hydraulic pumps are another story. Pump shaft size is important (35mm to 40mm) and the weight lifting capacity of the hydraulic pump (400lbs) is a major factor. Basically the pump needs to be massive in size for a barber chair, that's if you want a long lasting sturdy chair. Unfortunately pump capacity ratings from a lot of barber chair manufacturers are over inflated, stating their maximum lift on a good day without any safety factor built into it.

Barber Chair Design

Finally we get down to barber chair design basics, which is the barber chair steel frame construction; it needs to be rugged and not flimsy (basically put some steel in it). Many imported manufacturers just use a couple of steel crossbars for their framing which is marginal for sturdiness. The Keller Barber chair model K2006 series has a full solid 1/4 thick steel plate for the entire underside of the chair. Remember the old cast iron barber chairs, they were solid and extremely heavy. It's too bad we can't afford to make them like that any more. But I will put the Keller K2006A barber chair up against the old heavy duty ones any day. It's a very rugged chair.

Ask Donald Trump and Vince McMahon, whose barber chair they bought for the WWE Battle of the Billionaire's. Yep, Keller International K2006A was in the center of the Wrestling ring for the Hair vs. Hair shaving event! Well actually it was the WWE ( World Wrestling Entertainment ) that bought it, they should have just asked us, we would have given it to them for free.

We, at Keller International are an engineering based company and have strived through the years to continually improve and demand high quality in both our designs and finished products from our factories