Filling Tyre Cuts

[Zorro]

As you all know, riding the urban streets of britain your tyres get quite a battering. Whether it be from the latest chav smashing up a bus stop to impress the chavettes or from the drunks who toss their beer bottles willy nilly the roads tend to be filled with unavoidable clumps of glass.

This inevitably leads to slashes and small holes in the outer rubber of your tyres. I regularly check them and using the metal nib of a design pencil (thin but blunt) tease out all splinters of glass stuck in the holes.

Do any of you do anything to the holes after removing the glass-I have thought about -

• using some super glue to fill them?
• glueing some material of some kind it the holes (although they are generally only 2mm in length)?
• clean them and ignore them?

Any advice or opinions would be welcomed.

Cheers

 

[e-rider]

heat up a knife and melt the rubber back together!

I should add that I've never done that - just thought I'd suggest it. I always remove the glass and then just leave the hole.

 

[rogersavery]

I recently tried filling them with glue, it seems to work ok, but not sure it will have a positive improvement in tyre life or future puncture resistance

 

[Zorro]

heat up a knife and melt the rubber back together!

Sounds like an interesting method. But I might wait until I have a dead tyre to see if it works. Like the inventiveness though

 

[Zorro]

I recently tried filling them with glue, it seems to work ok, but not sure it will have a positive improvement in tyre life or future puncture resistance

I know what you mean. Could be that filling the holes are futile. But some of the holes can be so big you can see the inner tyre wall. So surely the smallest splinter of glass or even a sharp stone can attack straight at the inner wall without any protection.

Which glue did you use and how long did it last?

 

[Midnight]

5 days ago, I found a cut in my Marathon+'s, about 3mm deep. I filled it with rubber solution, the stuff you get in traditional PRKs, then I deflated the tyre to close the cut and left it to dry overnight. I've done 50 miles since, and it seems to be holding well so far.

 

[gbb]

I know what you mean. Could be that filling the holes are futile. But some of the holes can be so big you can see the inner tyre wall. So surely the smallest splinter of glass or even a sharp stone can attack straight at the inner wall without any protection.

Which glue did you use and how long did it last?

I had a slit in a Conti Gator that was perilously deep...i didnt glue it up (hadnt thought to) but i did lay some emery tape, abrasive side against the inside of the tyre, to help stop the innertube forcing its way out. The cloth re-inforcing is very strong and the tyre did many hundreds more miles without incident at that point. Eventually, the emerytape did give and the innertube blew at that point, so i just repeated the process.

 

[summerdays]

I usually go for the pick the stuff out and then ignore the hole until the next time I'm picking bits out. I do like the idea of using the PRK glue .. as you know that it is designed to work with tyre rubber. Though it doesn't seem to be an enormous problem even with cuts down to the fabric bit on my Marathon tyres.

 

[Norm]

I've once had a hole in the tyre big enough that I put a patch on the inside. It has held up ok, so far, but I don't know whether it would have done anyway.

 

[DavieB]

Car tyres get something called a mushroom that you can pull through the tread filling small gaps, something like this would be handy for small cuts in tyres.

 

[guitarpete247]

i did lay some emery tape, abrasive side against the inside of the tyre, to help stop the innertube forcing its way out. The cloth re-inforcing is very strong and the tyre did many hundreds more miles without incident at that point.

I remember some old PRK's had a piece of rubber coated fabric in them. This I suppose was for this very purpose. I'm sure some enterprising CC'er might read this thread and market something along these lines and make a fortune. Remember it was me who gave you the idea. I just can't be bothered doing it myself. I'm just the ideas type of person .

 

[Fab Foodie]

Glue for sticking neoprene/wetsuits works well. Superglue is too hard.

 

[Hover Fly]

There used to be something called tread (or tyre) stopping. Nowadays I make my own by mixing latex (Copydex) and graphite powder, get the proportions just right and it stays workable just long enough to fill a cut.

 

[e-rider]

try a park tools tyre boot if it's a big hole

 

[Banjo]

I have used superglue to fix small slits in bontrager racelights. After a few miles you cant see the repair.