First thing first, I am almost surprised we don't have a dedicated "Wheels and tires" forum subsection! It's a well-discussed subject.

After some recent time away on gravel riverbeds, I noticed some new damage to the tires. Is this kind of damage normal, or have I hit something unusually sharp?





Is there any need to repair this kind of damage, and if so, what technique does one use?

I have been toying with adding bed-liner to the tires, maybe something for the future once they roughen up a bit more. But that is a different question.

I had a couple similar marks on my old 26" bushwheels.

I had some similar cuts/marks as well. I never did anything to them. Most of mine are gone now as more rubber wears away.

Joe

Instead of bed liner try Flexane. It looks just like the tire rubber whereas the bed liner is very obvious. It's more expensive though.

It appears that BOTH "cuts" are on the inside of the center line.

Could be done at a "FIRM" [spreading the gear] touch down to tail up landing.

Might check after each landing for a while and back track to search.

River Bars always remind me of party places - broken glass etc.
New water washes new stuff down all the time.

Shootin' in the dark a bit.

Chris C

I had many of the same marks on my 31s. Never worried about it.

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River Bars always remind me of party places - broken glass etc.
New water washes new stuff down all the time.

Shootin' in the dark a bit.

might be something to what your saying!

Mr. Ed wrote:Instead of bed liner try Flexane. It looks just like the tire rubber whereas the bed liner is very obvious. It's more expensive though.

Thanks - good tip.

Bedliner works for me, I could care less what it looks like? Herculiner is my choice for the last 1500 hours, it will cover those cuts just like spackle on drywall. I have a lot of high ridge tops I play on that have sharp shale semi embedded and just laying on the ground. Often I see places where they are sticking up at an angle, exactly like the barriers they use to get you to drive the right direction into a parking garage! The very best advice I got on this subject was from Bob Breeden, and it was pretty simple.

Lower your air pressure......and here's the example he used for me: think of a small party balloon, blown up to it's max, take that balloon and jam it up against some rocks and see what happens. Then take that same balloon (well, it'd have to be a different one) and blow it up just enough to stay sort of round, and see the difference in how it will absorb much greater punishment. That is the basic principle, run as low of pressure as you can when playing on sharp rocks, so low it's hard to push out of the hangar. My personal cutoff point low PSI wise is when turning on a side hill, the tire folds in half OK, that was a bit too low, 2 psi it turned out! But there was no damage done to the tire and the wing tip only got a little scratch. Seriously though, when on a side slope the tires will really slump over from the side loads when at very low pressure, I just plan accordingly. Another obvious thing perhaps, really think through and keep an eagle eye out when getting turned around, I will often kill the engine and hand turn the plane in the worst spots (easy with the S-7, the Bearhawk not so much maybe). Liberal and frequent bed liner applications, I find I need to do mine somewhere between every 75 and 125 hours, low as possible PSI, (and if landing a few thousand feet higher then where departing, go even lower to allow for the atmospheric pressure change) and turning carefully or not all when possible, other then that I don't worry about it and work them like they were meant to be used

BTW, my 29" Airstreaks have a min pressure stamped on the sidewall of 6 PSI, I consider that an upper limit, and spend most of my time at 3.5 to 4, with enough time on the tires now to note any ill effects if any, there are none. I don't have to deal with much asphalt though I'm not sure high pressure is better for that or not, probably, is my guess.

Which version of Flexane 80 or 94 or?????

I had a significant series of cracks in one of mine. ABW told me not to worry unless I could see cord but were somewhat surprised by their size. I followed Courierguy's procedure and applied two coats of Herculiner. So far so good and I can't find the cracks.albumid=5456&photoid=42230[imghttps://backcountrypilot.org/me/my-photos/7371-camasflyer/photo?albumid=5456&photoid=42231][/img]

I screwed up posting my before and after Herculiner photos, so trying again.

As some mechanics would say..."fly it and watch it"

I have a few of those cuts on mine too, and while I cringe a little each time I look at them, there's not much you can do about it....means you're out there having fun!!

I've seen the results of using the Devcon Flexane 80 and you can hardly tell the difference over stock. Experimental guys don't worry about looks, but us certified losers have to worry about what our IA's and Fed's think! You have to prep the tire properly and use the appropriate primer to get good results, but it could greatly extend the life of your bushwheels if you do alot of pavement pounding.

bart wrote:As some mechanics would say..."fly it and watch it"

I have a few of those cuts on mine too, and while I cringe a little each time I look at them, there's not much you can do about it....means you're out there having fun!!

I've seen the results of using the Devcon Flexane 80 and you can hardly tell the difference over stock. Experimental guys don't worry about looks, but us certified losers have to worry about what our IA's and Fed's think! You have to prep the tire properly and use the appropriate primer to get good results, but it could greatly extend the life of your bushwheels if you do alot of pavement pounding.

Didn't think (never do) about the certified angle!
I'm right in the middle of my current application of Herc, takes a good 24 hours between unless the hangar is real warm, mine is mid 50's. My cuts were much worse then any pictured here, now I can't find them if I tried. Of course that was 5 coats ago, maybe 6, I quit keeping track. Long enough for around 35 bucks an app, 75 to 125 hours. I don't bother to do too neat a job, once the tires get used it'll look fine.https://www.flickr.com/photos/154038145 ... res/rg1z8q I just changed my photo sharing thing over to Flickr, this is my first pic using it, and can't seem to figure out how to get the pic itself posted, just the link to it, what's the trick, anyone?

I've seen the results of using the Devcon Flexane 80 and you can hardly tell the difference over stock.

Thanks for the info

Hey Battson, I'm no expert but I had very similar marks on my tires. A lot of my marks I found were from off airport landings on sharp stuff but I also noticed some gashes like your pics after landings on paved runways. I found I was being too careful and greasing it in scraping all that little crap against the soft tire and hard runway surface. Putting the tires on the deck with more positive contact rather than greasing it in worked best for me. There is also a lot of crud at the threshold of the smaller airports so landing a little further down helped also. I think hard runway super soft tire you just get that sometimes anyway. Just my experience for what its worth.