Learned some things about hand-tire siping M/T tires with an Ideal "hot
knife" tire groover/siper:
1.) Even though it's hot it still takes a good amount of arm and
shoulder strength to do it. I just did one tire and my neck, shoulders
and upper arms ache.
2.) Hankook Dynapro M/T tires have an odd tread design where it has
opposing "rings" of tread blocks in the center that start out big, then
shrink, then get bigger as you go around the center of the tread, making
you have to be careful how many sipes you put per tread block.
3.) You have to scrape off residual rubber/crud residue from the tip
regularly to get good heat transfer, otherwise the carbon builds up and
it makes it harder to cut
4.) If you cut the tires in your kitchen the entire house smells like
someone did a burnout in it. (Cool!)
5.) If your entire house smells like a burnout, your wife gets angry.
6.) If you wife discovers the reason why it smells like a burnout in the
house is because you were cutting tires in the kitchen, she gets very angry.
7.) If she finds out you used one of her cookie sheets to put the hot
knife on in the kitchen, she gets very very angry.
Good thing she can't climb stairs right now with her broken foot!
MattB
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Sep 01 2009 - 00:06:00 EDT