My pet peeve
One of my biggest pet peeves are luggage wheels. While the shell of a luggage can often last a decade or more, the wheels would often disintegrate and spoil after a few outings on a surface that is anything but a smooth floor.
This got me thinking, why can’t luggage wheels just use those ultra durable polyurethane skateboard wheels that are made to withstand high impact and rough terrain? I guess for luggage manufacturers, by making the wheels spoil easily, people would need to either send them for repair or get new ones. Kinda like how printers make money from inks more than the printer itself.
Off the shelf option
The closest manufacturer I found that shared the same point of view was Floyd, where they use proprietary wheels made from the same polyurethane composition of skateboard wheels. The only thing is that their luggage cost a bomb and their products are not that accessible in Singapore. Besides, didn’t really like their polycarbonate shells (prefer the aluminium ones) and given their wheels are custom, it will be a huge hassle if I needed to change them.
Floyd luggages – modern travel bags with skateboard wheels
Modifying the wheels on my own
So decided to just put on my industrial designer hat and just modify the luggage wheels myself. Turns out it was much easier than I expected, due to my luggage wheels using the same 8mm axel diameter as the standard skateboard bearings.
The original wheel set on my luggage
I got some basic skateboard wheels and bearings from Decathlon along with M8 bolts and washers from a hardware store. I decided to use skateboard wheels instead of inline skate wheels purely cause of aesthetics – the white wheels with my black luggage looks a lot better.
Luggages tend to use rivets to seal their wheels in, so the only option to remove them is to saw the axel off. I used a hacksaw with a carbon steel blade to do the job. Was relieved that it wasn’t that difficult to saw through the stainless steel axel.
Once the wheels were off, I could access the holding bracket. Thankfully the hole in the bracket matched the 8mm diameter of the skateboard wheel bearings, so I didn’t need to do any extra work to enlarge or fill the hole.
I was so happy getting these crappy wheels off the luggage
Using a 80mm long M8 bolt, the skateboard wheels were mounted on with a few washers in between.
End result
Total cost = SGD $81.25
Skateboard wheels = $30.90 x 2
Washers = $5.45
M8 x 80mm bolt and lock nuts = $14.00