cleaning waste rubber off slicks

[Richard Houlgate]

Track days = tyres covered in stacks of rubber picked up off the track

Surforming it off is a bore.

Are there any other means of cleaning up the tyres?

Are the power electric planers any good for this?

[nick997]

It's not uncommon to see the racers using heat guns to clean the tyres up - not all do it, some seem to leave them. A heat gun is probably just as boring as surform plane.

[Richard Houlgate]

the problem with a heat gun is just that, it heats up the rubber and so reduces its grip. I'm trying to find a mechanical way of doing it without wrecking the tyre

Edited by Richard Houlgate on Friday 3rd July 13:22

[SportsLibre]

If your tyres are working properly, it mostly your own rubber, not others.

The best I have seen/used is a very sharp wood plane to take the whole top layer of "dead" rubber and get back to the good stuff below, dont forget to use plant of water with perhaps a little fairy liquid in it to lube the blade and cool the rubber so it comes off better. This also applies (posibly more so)to using the sureform.

Angus

[BertBert]

Why do you need to take it off?
Bert

[SportsLibre]

BertBert said:

Why do you need to take it off?
Bert

Because otherwise you are basically "floating" on a layer of rubber that is not part of your tyre providing no grip.
You are no doubt aware of how much better new tyres are to old ones, well keeping the tyres clean and scrubbed back to the good rubber below the dead bobbles etc. has a similar improvement.

If you listen to race commentary, this is the "graining" that they complain of when they have lack of grip. i.e F1.

If you do not experience this problem, then you are probably running tyres that are too hard. For me only doing Hillclimbs and Sprints it is a more extreme problem.

[BertBert]

Interesting. I always thought all the "loose" rubber came off next time out. Happy to be wrong though. Also far too much faff for track days!
Bert

[minitici]

SportsLibre said:

[

If you do not experience this problem, then you are probably running tyres that are too hard. For me only doing Hillclimbs and Sprints it is a more extreme problem.

It is not really a 'problem' for SportsLibre as he gets me to clean off the picked up rubber and graining using a sharp wood plane

[fergus]

SportsLibre said:

BertBert said:

Why do you need to take it off?
Bert

Because otherwise you are basically "floating" on a layer of rubber that is not part of your tyre providing no grip.
You are no doubt aware of how much better new tyres are to old ones, well keeping the tyres clean and scrubbed back to the good rubber below the dead bobbles etc. has a similar improvement.

If you listen to race commentary, this is the "graining" that they complain of when they have lack of grip. i.e F1.

If you do not experience this problem, then you are probably running tyres that are too hard. For me only doing Hillclimbs and Sprints it is a more extreme problem.

Graining is when the tyre starts to try and pile up ontop of itself. This is seen on the surface of the tyre, and looks a bit like a typical bark pattern but obviously scaled down a lot! I can't remember which one, but one of Carrol Smith's books has a good example of this. This looks nothing like 'pick-up', which is where your tyres collect the marbles.

http://www.itratec.com/trivia/tyres.html