The Home Machinist!

I am in a dilemna right now and need some advice. I have an old molders friend that I got recently and it seems that the tires for it are now obsolete. The size of them is 4.5/44 and I am looking for advice on what to do. The problem is that the tires have dry rotted and have some splits in the sidewalls and even tubes for them are no longer available. I was wondering if it may be possible to have them foam filled; does anyone know anything about this and I wonder if it may work. If anyone has any experience with this please let me know.

It might help to post a picture of two of this thing. I'm not even remotely familiar with what you're talking about, although it could be others, here, might better understand. In either case, I'd enjoy seeing what you have.

Harold

I'll get the wife to post some pics of it this afternoon. She is the one that is computer literate and in this case camera literate, too. Basically what this machine does is that it is an overglorified sweeper. It moves on the shop floor and has large brushes that aerate the sand.

Foam filling of tires seems popular with the off-road and rock-crawler fans. If you can contact someone like that they should know about it. Seems like a good idea to me.

Don Young

For foam filling in your area, go to an industrial tire outfit-tire recapper. If they handle industrial trucks and earthmovers, they will have the information on local companies that do the foam work. It is a two part material supplied in 55 gallon drums, and unlikely to be found in smaller quantities for service. So if they have some around, they can do the job.

PS, I tried some of that canned foam in a wheel barrow tire, that was all weather cracked and would not hold air overnight. I drilled (!) 4 holes in the sidewall so I could get the straw applicator in, and fired away, on the side away from the valve. I also removed the schrader valve, and forced the foam around the inside. The tire blew up very hard by the time it came out the valve stem. The results were not as good as I had hoped, the tire feeling lumpy with probably big bubbles between stiff foam. The wheelbarrow was used but the tire was so bad that it came apart within a year, and was taken off and scrapped. for about $4 it was an interesting experiment. I could have banged the tire around to distribute the foam, but I didn't think of that then. Some day I will do it again, and see if there is any diference.