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

gladehound · Nov 28, 2016

dickfoster said:
This grooving thing isn't as easy as some let on. I started cutting 3/8" grooves in my rear lugs yesterday. I've got thirty some worms to show for it so far. My lugs twist and turn which doesn't make it easy but I figure the twisting and turning will make it so that one groove works for both forward and lateral traction. Hopefully the 1/4" grooves I cut in the front lugs will go much smoother. I wish the iron had a way of attaching a pull rope to it. Pulling is often easier than pushing for the force then steer it from the rear.

Because it was cold and wet I put a halogen work light on them to warm and soften the lugs up at bit before I cut but I don't think it did much to reduce the effort. I'm thinking of sticking my heat gun to em next go round.

Put a forced air heater on the tire. A 100,000+ BTU torpedo heater will get that tire hot in no time and you'll zip through them like nothing. I was probably at an hour for all 4 on the second tractor.

k0ua · Nov 28, 2016

gladehound said:
Put a forced air heater on the tire. A 100,000+ BTU torpedo heater will get that tire hot in no time and you'll zip through them like nothing. I was probably at an hour for all 4 on the second tractor.

Yes, that is the key. Cold tires=hard cutting. Hot tires=easy cutting.

PhysAssist · Nov 29, 2016

k0ua said:
Yes, that is the key. Cold tires=hard cutting. Hot tires=easy cutting.

The other key [and why pulling it backwards isn't the answer] is to go slow and make sure that the heavy cast brass [what it looks like to me] tip rests flat on the bit of rubber you are going to be pushing it through, thus pre-heating it.

I did mine a little at a time over a few days because I was just doing it on whatever piece of tire was reachable to the time without moving the tractor, but I did wait 20-30 minutes after plugging the tool in before cutting them- in fact the body of it was red-hot or close to it by the time I picked it up to use it each time.

It was only around 40-50 degrees in our barn when I did them but having read the reports of people having had to actually heat up their rubber before they could get it to cut- I was pleasantly surprised that I wasn't killing myself to get the iron through them.

Again, I only used the 1/4" blade, but I free handed all the cuts, and although I'm kinda [in]famous for not being able to cut or draw a straight line even with a straight-edge in place, I only bobbled a little bit of it.

Of course the usual YMMV disclaimer applies.

My remaining dilemma is whether to groove the fronts or not...

BTW, having seen all the dirt our tractor tracks into/leaves on the floor of our barn- I knew you were joking about the embedded gravel acting as studs- but it might not be all that far off the truth.

Thomas

RjCorazza · Nov 30, 2016

PhysAssist said:
...
I did mine a little at a time over a few days because I was just doing it on whatever piece of tire was reachable to the time without moving the tractor, but I did wait 20-30 minutes after plugging the tool in before cutting them- in fact the body of it was red-hot or close to it by the time I picked it up to use it each time....

I did mine over several days also, but used the #5 head cutting pretty deep into the rear lugs. I spent more time getting myself positioned and lined up so I could get some weight behind the tool than actually cutting.

Glrret · Nov 30, 2016

I'm not real knowledgeable on tires but aren't there different grades of rubber in tires from different manufactures? My tires cut real easy, the temperature was about 45 deg and even though the rubber was cold I didn't find it to be that strenuous.

gladehound · Nov 30, 2016

Glrret said:
I'm not real knowledgeable on tires but aren't there different grades of rubber in tires from different manufactures? My tires cut real easy, the temperature was about 45 deg and even though the rubber was cold I didn't find it to be that strenuous.

My first tractor had much harder rubber than the second. The first was also much older and rubber hardens with time so that could have been the difference. Either way, both cut like butter when heated with a 100,000+ BTU torpedo heater. My tires were probably 130 degrees when I cut them. They were a little too hot to leave your hand on them for any length of time. Definitely recommend heating for easy cutting!

dickfoster · Dec 2, 2016

gladehound said:
Put a forced air heater on the tire. A 100,000+ BTU torpedo heater will get that tire hot in no time and you'll zip through them like nothing. I was probably at an hour for all 4 on the second tractor.

Yeah I was going to do something like that to preheat the tire when I start in again. I'll try it with a space heater first, then a space heater with a fan if that doesn't work and if that doesn't do the trick I've got a three burner propane heater that puts out some big BTUs. Or I've got a heat gun that I can melt the lugs down with if I'm not careful. It supposed to be something like 61 tomorrow.

gladehound · Dec 2, 2016

dickfoster said:
Yeah I was going to do something like that to preheat the tire when I start in again. I'll try it with a space heater first, then a space heater with a fan if that doesn't work and if that doesn't do the trick I've got a three burner propane heater that puts out some big BTUs. Or I've got a heat gun that I can melt the lugs down with if I'm not careful. It supposed to be something like 61 tomorrow.

Warm weather definitely helps. Make sure to blow the heat on the section of tire that is just in front of where you are cutting so that it is warming while you cut. if the space heater is the 120V those are about 6,000 BTU. Not sure it will heat fast enough. Of your choices I'd try the 3 burner propane heater or maybe that in combo with the space heater.

dickfoster · Dec 3, 2016

Well I got them finished today. I took advantage of a nice warm 61 degree day. A few notes for those who have yet to groove their tires. The 1/4" cuts much easier than the 3/8" that I used for the rears. I used 1/4" for the smaller lugs on the front tires.
Oddly enough each tire had 44 lugs front and rear. These tires are Titan Trac Loaders.

The space heater really helped a lot as did getting out the floor jack and putting the tractor on jack stands. Having the tires off the ground let me turn the tire for an optimum working angle instead of all the cockeyed angles I was trying to deal with with the tires on the ground. The space heater helped by getting some heat into the lugs before I started cutting. Preheat was especially helpful for the larger grooves and thicker lugs on the rear tires. The preheated lugs required much less pressure and force while it also cut much faster than before.

After I got the rears done with the #6 blade I changed over to the 1/4" #4 for the fronts and let the iron get hot while the space heater worked on the tire. Man those things cut like a hot knife through butter and I was done lickety split. The smaller grooves were probably at least six times easier and faster to cut than the big ones.

So now my tractor has snow tires and I'm a happy camper and am all set to deal with the snow if it ever comes. Last year I got all set by getting the snow blower all serviced and I even bought a snow shovel for the deck but all we got was a nice white Christmas. I didn't have to deal with anything as we could just drive though what there was of it. I don't think I saw the county plow but twice all last winter. One of these days it's gonna really snow here or so the locals keep telling me. If and when it does I'm set.