Snow Equipment Owning/Operating Cutting / Groving / Siping R-4 for snow

[teg]

...I recently picked up an Ideal Heated Knife, also known as a tire groover...

What size blade did you use and how deep did you go? Would you change anything if you were to to it again? I'm thinking maybe a smaller blade with two rows instead of one? Looks good!!!

http://pitstopusa.com/b-4665-ideal-heated-knives.html


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[gladehound]

What size blade did you use and how deep did you go? Would you change anything if you were to to it again? I'm thinking maybe a smaller blade with two rows instead of one? Looks good.

I used a #4 blade and went 3/8 inch deep. If I were to change anything it would be to make each groove longer (which I can still go back and do), continuing so they get closer to the outside edges of the lugs. this is because it's easy to see that the snow only sticks on the lug where the groove is. On the outside part of the lug where the groove isn't the snow falls right off.

This is the first time I've done something like this so I don't know if other size groves would work better or not as well. I think it should work well. Maybe better than one larger groove. The trade off is lug strength. But you'll be fine if you don't goo too deep. You can always re-groove them as the tire wears.

I plowed 5 driveways since I grooved the tires and am still very impressed with the increase in traction. I have a gravel driveway which has a hard pack of snow/ice on it from repeated snows. There is a hill at one part that the tractor could not go up in 2wd before grooving the tires. Now it has no problem going up the same spot in 2wd. It is also pushing piles better in 4wd than before and I have not yet spun a tire since grooving them.

It's easy to see why the traction is so much better. The snow packs in those grooves and then uses that as an anchor point to spread across the top of the lug. 2 grooves would give two anchor points and maybe more complete coverage of the lug with snow and that is a good thing. Post pictures! :thumbsup:

 

[nuffer460]

Very cool!! If I changed any thing. It would be to make the cuts closer to the outside lugs. I have both Ag tires and Turf tires. The turf tires are twice as good pushing snow than the Ag tires. Maybe, have to do a little surgery to the rear ag tires.:laughing:

 

[gladehound]

It's so embarasing to have these big lugged tires and to sit and spin on a little bit of packed snow that a Honda accord with snow tires would drive right up. :laughing:

A true snow tire has a tremendous number of grooves and sipes! (see pic) So I didn't think making just one groove per lug would make such a noticable difference in traction, but thinking of it another way... no difference bigger than the difference from 0 to 1 :laughing:

With that one groove my tires hold snow over about 50% of the lugs surface area. So does that mean that I've realized 50% of the available traction gain from siping? I figure once you get to 100% snow coverage on the lug, adding more grooves or sipes wont help.

 

[CompactTractorFan]

Interesting...I've never heard of cutting tires before...

 

[teg]

...Siping on the other hand should not increase the wear rate so long as it's done in a way that the lugs don't chunk off since contact pressure is not changed...

What "tool" would you have used to do Siping? ...just cutting the tire with a regular knife/blade? A lot cheaper than the the Ideal Heated Knife.... Interesting the story about Siping on wiki...

On a side note, I so loved spinning the wheels in the snow (when I knew I was going to get stuck!) I would like to get more traction without going to the expense of chains (poor clearance in the wheel / fender area). Besides, I'm just a tight wad.

 

[gladehound]

You can use the Ideal heated knife to sipe also. Just take whatever blade you get and turn it upside down. You'll have two prongs sticking out and will make two sipes at a time.

Alternatively, if you have a torpedo heater and can get the tire real hot it might be reasonable to use utility knife instead. Obviously the heated knife will be faster because the blade is heated.

 

[Diamondpilot]

Very nice job. This may be the saving grace for the guys down the roads 35 HP JD with R4'. It stinks in the snow. I end up doing his plowing. I will forward this to him. He buys the tool and I will do the work.

Thanks

Chris

 

[Johno Geo]

I have R-4 on my NH 4060.
With 4wd , the traction you get, is what you get (chains not withstanding)
You always run out of traction before you run out of power, even on dry earth.
I am not a tire expert, but at the cost of new tires, no way would I cut the tires..... only my opinion.
I understand the "More bitting edges" theory, but you also weaken the tire and apply force to a smaller area, which means more stress..(FORCE/UNIT AREA)and more Strain (deformation/unit area).. none of which can be good for rubber....
Good luck...

 

[gladehound]

I am not a tire expert, but at the cost of new tires, no way would I cut the tires..... only my opinion.

I am not a tire expert either, but at the cost of new tires, no way would I go out and buy another set to get better performance when I can just cut the ones I have

To each his own! Yes, any cutting you do will weaken the lug. But how much stronger is the lug than it needs to be to start with??? In the rears, I believe the answer is a lot!

Compare the force that each lug in the rear handles compared to those in the front (with 4WD and a loader). Typically the front is loaded as heavy as the rear if not more so and it has tiny tires with tiny lugs. And while the front's wear out much faster than the rears, I spin them all the time on all sorts of surfaces and have never chunked off a lug in the front! The width to height ratio of the lugs in for the fronts is closer to 1 to 1. So grooving to maintain a 2 to 1 tread block height to width ratio in the rears is still very conservative. Again, just my opinion. And you can bet that when I eventually get new rear tires, the first thing I will do is cut them to my liking! :thumbsup: