Removing Tire Flash
Removing Tire Flash

There is an old Proverb, "Iron sharpens iron, So one man sharpens a friend."

    I have experimented with making tire for years and learned a lot.  Starting a business is not my intention, but am looking for the perfect tire.  The problem in making is what is referred to as flash.  It is the crud that sticks out of the top of the mold.  Some people fill the mold and then take a straight edge and scrape the tire flat.  The problem is that when the tire dries it cups in the back.  A good sign of a home brewed tire.  Mounting the master on top of a dime was tried so there was a protrusion out of the back of the tire when cast. The flash was then sanded off the backside of the tire.  This works OK, but takes longer than I wish to spend.  Sebastian showed me something on his Area 3 tire truer.  He gets the tire spinning then holds a razor knife to the flash and it cuts a perfect circlet off.  He sharpened my iron.


    Now, I am going to sharpen his technique.  We both agreed that the more flash there was the easier and better the cut.  I mounted the tire on an aluminium rim backwards and chucked the axle which it was mounted to in the three jaw chuck of my lathe.  I tried it his way.  My old hands are not steady enough, but THEN I mounted the razor knife in the tool post.  I can manipulate the blade within .0003" and move the blade in slowly with no coordination required.  My next mold will have three dimes worth of flash sticking out the back! Things just got sharper.



The next one shows the type of blade I had to use to get things to line up without modifying anything.



Here is a NSR VMG rim with a tire bonded right to the rim.  I aligned the blade to the back of the rim and had it a smooth as a Super tire in a couple of seconds.The cupped piece of flash is right beside it.



This shows how nice the system works.  Thanks Sebastian for the idea.