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

[dickfoster]

Dickfoster you need to post some picture so we can see you handy work and the pattern you selected.

They look like most of the others on here. I just put one groove down the center or close the center of each lug leaving some meat at each end of the groove.
Here's what the lug patterns looks like. As you can see there is a bit of horizontal and some diagonal lug to it so I think I'm good to go for both forward and lateral traction but it meant the grooves had to snake around and curve some.
The lug patterns were the same front and rear. Oddly enough the same 44 lugs per tire just scaled to the tire size for a total of 176 grooves I had to cut, 88 biguns and 88 littlens.

 

[Garandman]

Sooner or later the nice sharp edge on your grooves will get worn down. My ag tires worked great the first winter but after 5 years with lots of miles they are not so good in the snow. I have lots of hills and a gravel driveway so chains are required so I really don't have anything to gain by experimenting. Do you find the snow sticking inside the grooves?

Ayuh.

FWIW while it may not matter either way, I started and stopped the grooves at about the same distance from the end of the block as they are front-rear. My rationale was this preserved load capacity. Others have gone all the way through with no apparent problem so that might be more conservative than necessary.

 

[Garandman]

I think sipe cuts are there mainly for wet pavement (wet and slushy) and they may provide a little (very little) benefit on ice. Nothing beats studs for traction on ice.

When you accelerate or decelerate a car, the tread blocks deflect and the sipes expose a bunch of edges that improves traction on ice. Not clear if tractor tire sipes would or would not help on ice because the rubber compound is so much harder.

Modern winter tires have a combination of special tread compounds and tread geometry to get their extraordinary traction. In fact studded tires are only better in a narrow range of conditions while being much worse on dry road handling and illegal in most states other than winter.

This is how the winter tire has changed / Nokian Tires

 

[npalen]

I finally replaced the original 29 year old Bridgestone turfs on my Kubota B9200 recently with these Firestone turfs. The local dealer had them as new old stock and let me have them for $100 ea. (13.6-16 size) My only concern is that the tread pitch is much coarser than the old tires. May "get" to run them in snow this week but wondering if they need to be grooved to get more bite.

Edit: The old Bridgestones had excellent traction in snow and ice.

 

[Glrret]

WOW :thumbsup: that's a lot of tire for $100

 

[npalen]

WOW :thumbsup: that's a lot of tire for $100

Wheels Beloit, KS Concordia, KS Osborne, KS | Thompson's OK Tire

Can't say enough good things about these folks.

 

[Glrret]

I know where Beloit, KS is, I used to live in Woodbine, KS. its SE of Abilene just off Rt-77. Boy that was another life time ago, I lived there between 1984 to 1990 then I was deployed for Desert Storm and when I got back they sent me to Germany.

 

[npalen]

I know where Beloit, KS is, I used to live in Woodbine, KS. its SE of Abilene just off Rt-77. Boy that was another life time ago, I lived there between 1984 to 1990 then I was deployed for Desert Storm and when I got back they sent me to Germany.

I'll bet you were stationed at Fort Riley, KS?

 

[Glrret]

I'll bet you were stationed at Fort Riley, KS?

O' Ya.... Like a said that was another life time....

 

[dickfoster]

Ayuh.

FWIW while it may not matter either way, I started and stopped the grooves at about the same distance from the end of the block as they are front-rear. My rationale was this preserved load capacity. Others have gone all the way through with no apparent problem so that might be more conservative than necessary.

I did the same as you and on the same tires by the looks of it. I figured it would help the grooves hold on to the snow.