THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



Tire Rebuilding and Repairing. 



REBUILDING. 



THE RAPID GROWTH ill popularity of automobiling has de- 

 veloped a wide-spread demand among tire users for de- 

 pendable rebuilt tires, tire repairs, and devices such as 

 tire reliners, blow-out patches and other means for extending 

 the usefulness of tires. In response to this demand innumerable 

 tire repair plants are to be found on every hand. Some of these 



are developing their facilities 



to enable them to rebuild tires and 

 a number of companies are now 

 organized and operating plants in 

 various sections of the country, 

 exclusively for rebuilding both 

 wrapped tread and full molded 

 tires. 



The stock of repairable tires is 

 selected from the standard makes 

 of high-grade guaranteed fabric 

 tires. Such old tires are stripped 

 down from their road-worn con- 

 dition to a basis of sound fabric 

 plies, and after being repaired, are 

 rebuilt with new rubber and 

 fabric, or salvaged fabric, into a 

 serviceable product salable as 

 legitimate low-priced merchan- 

 dise. 



Restoring old tires to a service- 

 able condition by repairing is, of 

 course, nothing new. The enor- 

 mous number of tires in use and 

 the desire on the part of their 

 owners to derive the utmost of 

 tire mileage to compensate for the 

 high cost of motoring, form the 

 basis of a great national business 

 in the United States. 



Previous to the abnormal condi- 

 tions due to the demand for 

 munitions of war, motorists gen- 

 erally did not appreciate the pos- 

 sibilities of expert tire rebuilding, 

 but when convinced through 

 necessity that it is practical econ- 

 omy and that the last thousand 

 miles of tire service is in fact the 

 cheapest, they accepted it as they 

 have the factory-rebuilt automo- 

 bile. Tire rebuilding is today an 

 essential and profitable business, depending fully as much on 

 ability to judge whether casings are worth the necessary repairs 

 as on skill in performing the work. 



SELECTING TIRES FOR REBUILDING. 

 The first selection of road-worn tires for rebuilding is done by 

 the rubber scrap dealers who specialize in old tires and who also 

 salvage sound tire fabric from unrepairable old tires for use in 

 rebuilding such as are repairable, and for manufacture into tire 

 reliners, blow-out patches, etc. The final selection requires the 

 expert judgment of a man famihar with tire construction, and 

 able to diagnose structural weaknesses in order to eliminate all 

 casings that cannot be turned into serviceable rebuilt tires. 

 TYPICAL METHOD OF REBUILDING TIRES. 

 Diflferent methods have been developed for successfully rebuid- 

 ing tires, both wrapped tread and full molded. The work con- 

 sists essentially of four parts: (1) tearing down, (2) repairing, 



(,Thc B. F. Goodrich Co.) 



Method of M.\king Section- 

 al Repair. 



(3) rebuilding. (4) curing. Two typical processes are here given. 



One method is to tear apart the old tire, layer by layer, and use 



the material thus obtained (except the old rubber) in building a 



The Cutting-Down Process. 



new tire, cutting out the damaged portion of the fabric and build- 

 ing up as in building a new tire of new material, except for the 

 use of the beads and the old fabric bases. This method is efifective 

 but the cost is very little lower than where new fabric is used. 



A more economical and practical way is the following, recom- 

 mended by a concern which has developed the system of molding 

 described. 



TEARING DOWN. 



An old tire, carefully selected, having a good body with no rim- 

 culs, is hung on an ordinary tire core and the center of the tread 

 is skived down to the fabric for a space of about six inches in 

 length. The tire is then put on a machine having an interchange- 

 able tool which cuts through the outside ply of fabric from the 

 tread to the bead point. The tire is then taken off, turned around, 

 and the fabric cut from the center to the opposite bead. This 

 leaves the outside ply of fabric cut through from bead point to 

 bead point. This outside ply, including the tread, is now peeled 

 back for a distance of four or five inches and stripped from 

 the tire with the assistance of hand-tools. 



(Hibbs Rubhc. 



Building Up Rebuilt Tire.s. 



The object in removing the first ply of fabric from the tire to 

 be rebuilt is to minimize the amount of labor in preparing the 

 old tire for rebuilding and to secure the proper vulcanization of 

 the rebuilt tire. The first ply of fabric, generally full of sand, 

 etc., is removed before the carcass or body of the tire is cemented 

 and the new tread applied. 



