This is a question about tires, but only as it relates to board-track-era cycles (from 1900 to 1920 or so).
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I am considering attempting to make my own tires, so that I can have ones that look better than what is available. This will be so that I (and possibly others) can obtain tires that--while not the exact same dimensions--will at least have the correct tread styles and colors (something so far no commercial MTB tire company has been able to do). I haven't ever worked with molding rubber before, but all the people who say it can't be done have never tried it themselves and can't explain to me exactly why it can't be done--so I'm going to give it a spin, more or less.
What I already know is that all the required materials are available separately. I have some other things going on so it may be a month or two before I start messing with any of it.
There's plenty of Chinese tire companies that will happily do custom production work and they could do it much cheaper and better on their factory equipment than I could by hand, but there's two problems with them: most have a minimum order quantity of one 20-foot container of tires, and the cost of tooling a new tire tread mold is tens of thousands of dollars,,, and you don't even own it after you pay for it, you're just paying them to make a mold that they keep. (-Not that you would really have much use for the tire mold on your own, but the point is that even if you decide you no longer want their services, then they are free to crank out tires on a mold you paid your own money to build-)
Of all the photos I've found so far, I have only found three different basic tread styles shown in use on motorcycles, with some variations in tire color.
See this page:
Welcome to old motorcycle tires
If you can produce a vintage photo showing another style of tire tread, I'd like to see it. I have searched quite a lot already but only in English-language pages. If you can read other languages you may find things I missed.
Also note that for this purpose, only vintage photos are useful as evidence. Any modern restoration may have used the incorrect tires simply because it was one that was cheaper or easier to obtain than the proper tire, or they couldn't find any information that said what the proper tire really was.
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I am considering attempting to make my own tires, so that I can have ones that look better than what is available. This will be so that I (and possibly others) can obtain tires that--while not the exact same dimensions--will at least have the correct tread styles and colors (something so far no commercial MTB tire company has been able to do). I haven't ever worked with molding rubber before, but all the people who say it can't be done have never tried it themselves and can't explain to me exactly why it can't be done--so I'm going to give it a spin, more or less.
What I already know is that all the required materials are available separately. I have some other things going on so it may be a month or two before I start messing with any of it.
There's plenty of Chinese tire companies that will happily do custom production work and they could do it much cheaper and better on their factory equipment than I could by hand, but there's two problems with them: most have a minimum order quantity of one 20-foot container of tires, and the cost of tooling a new tire tread mold is tens of thousands of dollars,,, and you don't even own it after you pay for it, you're just paying them to make a mold that they keep. (-Not that you would really have much use for the tire mold on your own, but the point is that even if you decide you no longer want their services, then they are free to crank out tires on a mold you paid your own money to build-)
Of all the photos I've found so far, I have only found three different basic tread styles shown in use on motorcycles, with some variations in tire color.
See this page:
Welcome to old motorcycle tires
If you can produce a vintage photo showing another style of tire tread, I'd like to see it. I have searched quite a lot already but only in English-language pages. If you can read other languages you may find things I missed.
Also note that for this purpose, only vintage photos are useful as evidence. Any modern restoration may have used the incorrect tires simply because it was one that was cheaper or easier to obtain than the proper tire, or they couldn't find any information that said what the proper tire really was.
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