Grooving Industrial Tires

[yooperdave]

How hard is it to groove Industrial Tires?

What tools, how wide, how deep, unit of measure?

Assuming this will not decrease the life of the tire?

Might be a good summer project as a proactive measure.

TIA

Yooper Dave

 

[chevy]

With one of these I have heard it is not hard. There are a lot of other tire groovers also.

Tire groover.

 

[pokey1416]

Works great IMO, haven't had to use 4WD yet unless I'm on ice. Of course, haven't really had a good snow year so far. Ask again on Friday as we might get a good amount Wed and Thursday.

Here's my posting on it in OTT Does tire grooving really work?

 

[RjCorazza]

I grooved the r4's on my last 2 tractors. The traction improvement is definitely noticable. For average snow amounts I am now able to plow up slopes that I had previously had to drive up and plow down. Sounds like a small thing, but plowing some 15 long rural drives, that efficiency matters.
I believe my iron is made by Ideal, and I cut my tires about 1/4" wide by 1/4" deep. Will it affect tire life? I suspect it does, as there is less rubber on the road. My previous machine had 1300 hours on grooved tires, and the rears were far from worn out and the fronts were getting there, but likely had another 500 hours of life.
For improved snow traction using r4's I highly recommend grooving.
There are a wide variety of patterns that people cut... I went with one groove down each lug.

 

[kennyd]

I've done two sets of R4's, somewhat easy to do with the Ideal Tire Groover, makes an incredible difference in traction.

https://www.amazon.com/Ideal-902-000-Tire-Groover/dp/B004AW7XYU/ref=sr_1_10?gclid=Cj0KCQiA0eOPBhCGARIsAFIwTs4CzACSI_GungGso4jG71kc5Y3ZzbXqznLfhGVu4JNAR1XI5-9LvegaAhI_EALw_wcB&hvadid=174242213248&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9007888&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=13656992684270117080&hvtargid=kwd-16981375288&hydadcr=7471_9322239&keywords=ideal+tire+groover&qid=1643719284&sr=8-10

 

[TractorTYMe]

I have an Ideal heated knife I used on once to groove my tires, I have to use chains none the less. PM me if someone is interested? I'll sell it $75.00 shipped anywhere in the lower 48.

 

[TWD]

The tires on my Kubota M59 are chunked pretty severely already from catching edges of stumps and misc stuff I may run across not visible in the snow...
By comparison @RjCorazza your tires look brand new.

I assume you didn't notice any additional chunking as I don't really see any right now anyway ???

 

[RjCorazza]

@TWD
The front tires in the picture have about 600 hours on them, but were just grooved. The rears were grooved shortly after new.
I never had any chunks of tread coming off on my previous tractor that had somewhere around 1300 hours on the grooved tires.

I am either on pavement, grass, or dirt 99% of the time. No gravel, stumps, or rocks. I would imagine your service requirements are more severe than mine.

On edit: cool method on identifying a specific person with the @whomever. Much easier than quoting a message!

 

[Bronco82]

As mentioned, the Ideal Heated Knives Tire Groover, and I believe a number four blade. I think down about 1/4".

I picked one up used off Kijiji last summer, but misplaced the blades I ordered for it. Looking forward to this summer so I can do mine, versus the extra time it would take to do it this winter with the tires being darn cold. From what I've read, the warmer the tire, the easier to cut into it.

It would decrease the life of the tire, but as others mentioned as well in other posts, after hundreds or thousands of hours, nothing more than what would have normally worn, or not many chunks/lugs missing. It seems any extra wear is minimal, and the traction gained is well worth it.

 

[Norm W]

I have used a panel cutter in an air hammer to re-groove tires. To make it cut better I replaced the cutting part with a piece of 1/4" tool bit stock. No burning rubber smell, nothing gets burned and the air does the work.