There's a castor for almost any bench in the workshop, and our team can help you match one to yours. If you want a bench that rolls when you need the floor space but sits dead still when you're planing or grinding, retractable castors are the answer: a foot pedal lifts the bench onto wheels, then drops it back onto its own legs.
The install itself is quick. The two things that decide whether it works are getting all four plates at the same height, and drilling proper pilot holes into the legs.
The kit in the video is the Move It retractable workbench castor 4-pack, which you'll find at Bunnings. It's rated to 350kg the set on 60mm polyurethane wheels, and it's a fair light-to-medium duty choice for a home or small trade workshop. If you're carrying more than that, or you'd rather spec your own castors by load and floor, our Easyroll range covers it - there's more on choosing those at the end.
Buy the Move It kit at Bunnings
Getting the mounting height right
A retractable castor works off a cam: the pedal pushes the wheel down past the leg to lift the bench, then releases it. So the height you fix the plate at sets both how far the bench lifts and how hard the pedal is to press. As a working rule, set the plate so the wheel sits about 15-20mm (roughly 3/4") clear of the floor when the pedal's up. Mount it too high and the pedal won't push the wheel down far enough to lift the legs clear; mount it too low and you lose pedal travel, and that travel is the leverage that makes lifting a loaded bench easy.
Whatever height you land on, all four plates have to match. If they don't, the bench rocks when it's up on the wheels and the mechanisms take an uneven load. A quick trick: cut a scrap block to your reference height and use it to mark all four legs from the bottom of the leg, not off the floor - workshop slabs are rarely dead flat. Three minutes with a block saves pulling castors back off later.
Pilot holes, and matching them to the timber
Pilot holes aren't optional in a hardwood leg, and the right size depends on what you're drilling into. A coach screw has an outer thread and a solid inner core, the root. In dense Australian hardwoods like Jarrah, Spotted Gum and ironbark, drill the pilot to about 100% of that root diameter. Go smaller and the torque needed to drive the screw can snap the head clean off. In softwoods like radiata pine or Oregon, drop to 75-85% of the root so the threads still have raw timber to bite into.
The pilot does two jobs: it cuts the fibres cleanly instead of forcing them apart, and it heads off the internal stress that splits a leg hours or even days after you've walked away. Match the drill to the screw's core, not its threads, and use the metal mounting plate itself as your drilling template - it's more accurate than paper and it won't shift between legs.
Never into end grain
Don't drive a load-bearing screw straight up into the bottom of the leg. Screws in end grain run parallel to the fibres and have almost no pull-out strength - they'll work loose and tear out under a sideways shove. Retractable plates side-mount onto the face of the leg, which is side grain and exactly what you want. If a leg's too narrow for the plate, glue and screw a hardwood block to the side first (a cross-linked PVA, then screws driven across the grain), and mount the plate to that.
Screws, torque and the right tool
These kits usually come with M6 or M8 coach screws (1/4" or 5/16") around 40-50mm long, which is plenty for a bench leg. Sink them with a socket or ratchet rather than an impact driver. An impact driver has no feel - the hammering makes it easy to over-torque and either strip the hole or snap a head off in dense timber. With a socket you feel the screw seat, and you stop there.
One safety note the video skips over: wear eye protection while you're pilot drilling. Dry hardwood throws hard, sharp chips, and they end up in places you'd rather they didn't.
Choosing the castors themselves
Whatever kit you fit, size it to the real load: the bare bench, the heaviest machine bolted to it, your tools, the workpiece, and a bit of headroom for the shove and jolt of moving it across a slab. A bench grinder on its own can add 30-40kg. As a working figure, a 100kg bench holding 100kg of gear wants a kit rated around 350kg the set, which leaves margin for the dynamic load. Retractable kits in Australia run from about 150kg light-duty up to 400kg.
Wheel material matters more than people expect on a workshop floor. Polyurethane is the workshop standard: it won't mark sealed concrete, it sheds swarf and grit, and it rolls easily under load. Rubber is quieter and rides over debris, but it drags more and can flat-spot if the bench sits in one place for months. Nylon takes big loads and rolls with almost no resistance, but it's noisy and can scuff an epoxy floor.
If you're going past a bolt-on kit and speccing castors properly, by load, wheel and floor, our Easyroll ball-bearing castors and swivel castors cover everything from light bench work up to serious plant. The castor buyer's guide walks through matching the wheel, load and bearing to the job. Tell us the weight and the floor and we'll point you at the right wheel.