Snow Equipment Owning/Operating Cutting / Groving / Siping R-4 for snow

[dragoneggs]

See- told you so!

:thumbsup:

Own it, man, own it...

:mischievous:

Believe you me, not all commentary of mine [nor anyone else's] here is necessarily complementary*- although I personally DO try to remember the golden rule.

*Hence the lack of [m]any project picture posts by me...

I know that I'm at best a hack artist & chainsaw carpenter.

Jeez... now you are going all fancy with font and color text now. :confused2:

 

[Boris1]

Wow! Indeed nice job Boris... you said in an earlier post you used white dots and 'mostly' freehand. Did you sometimes use a straight edge? If so, did that speed things up? Seeing yours I am encouraged to try myself if I can get my hands on a tool.

I used the dots as a guide or something to shoot for or a connect the dots . I guess what I meant by mostly is I used a framing square for measuring 3/4" in at both ends so I didn't compromise the edges. Tried to start & end with a short downward and outward slope. My thinking was it would somehow keep the strength of each tread bar. I "eyeballed" the center point after I got a feel for the groover.

I have not decided how to do the rears yet, My first thought was to use a bigger groove but now I'm thinking maybe 2 per tread the Same size as the front ones. Gonna think on it. Good luck if you give it a try, if I could do it I'm sure you guys will be fine.

 

[PhysAssist]

Jeez... now you are going all fancy with font and color text now. :confused2:

I'm on a desktop at work :thumbdown:

So I can play with all these attributes :reading:

I'm usually on my android tablet at home:tractor:,
and it gets all hinky :vomit:when I try to do this stuff on it :melodramatic:

Better get back to to work now...
T

 

[nightdevil]

Anyone interested in selling their knife before I buy one!?

 

[teg]

If my history repeats itself, and it will, I'm sure the next week after I sell my knife, I'll need it again...

My front tires will need to be replaced at some point, this is the only reason I'm keeping it.

 

[kennyd]

Anyone interested in selling their knife before I buy one!?

What is a JD 2015 (under your username)? 2025 maybe?

I won't sell you mine, but I'll rent it to you REAL cheap

 

[nightdevil]

Yeah about to order ... can't update profile on TT...will do it lata

 

[gladehound]

OP here. The cold weather is starting to roll in and it's snowing in parts of the Northeast. About a year ago I grooved the tires on my new tractor (well, new 2 years ago). At that time I wrote that I would post pictures once I was done but got busy etc. So finally posting pics! I did the traditional "follow the lug" pattern on the front just like on my first tractor (the one that started this thread). However, on the rear I grooved much more liberally and practically made what look like R-4 turfs because I wanted maximum traction. I didn't have a picture of just the tires on hand but in his picture with my kids you can clearly see the groove pattern on the tires.



As luck would have it I did this just few months before the 30+" storm we had last winter. I never once had to think about traction. It walked right through 30+ inches with the big snow bucket gliding on Edge Tamers and pushing a wall of snow 4-5 feet high. Couldn't have been easier!



Can't wait for the snow to start again and really hoping for another big dump! The tires on the new tractor have been grooved for a year and about 100 hours with no issues.

 

[RjCorazza]

I grooved my previous L3410 r4's after reading this thread just after last year's NE blizzard. Even though it came out perfect, I am having difficulty in putting my relatively new L4060 under the knife! I really should just do it.
I used a 6' blower on the rear with the bucket up front and had some traction issues on (2) driveways with inclines that I plowed 2 days after the snow stopped. One 200' driveway had to be done one bucket load at a time . I believe the snow had compacted by then, and the very bottom was like ice. The other driveways (10 or so) in my neighborhood were done the day after and had no problems with. Since these are contract jobs, I had to buy chains to cover the worst case scenario.
Here is what I did on the L3410 :

 

[gladehound]

Since these are contract jobs, I had to buy chains to cover the worst case scenario.
Here is what I did on the L3410 :

Once upon a time I used chains whenever it got bad. After gouging a neighbors driveway and gouging my garage floor I needed to find a better solution before doing more damage. So I started looking at snow tire technology and thinking about what could be applied to my R-4s. Honestly, the improved traction was more than I had anticipated.

I had absolutely no traction issues last year with all 4 tires freshly grooved in 30 inches of snow. Even going up a steep drive ~20%+ (where I couldn't finish one year in about 12" of snow with chains [only on front] because I was spinning on the asphalt and gouging the driveway) I had no problems with my current setup with all 4 tires grooved. Traction is obviously much better when you get down to asphalt. That is not a direct comparison because I'm using an entirely different (larger) tractor now and had chains only on front on the smaller tractor previously etc. But my point is that I've been able to do everything I've tried with all 4 tires grooved - rears heavily grooved.

I think going with more grooves on the larger rear lugs was a good move. I can see how much more snow they hold compared to my previous tractor which had one groove that followed the lug. Essentially, the snow sticks to the entire lug with the groove pattern that I used.

I have not had the new tractor in an ice storm. However, I did testing with the old tractor with grooved tires after an ice storm and compared it to several vehicle tire combinations and it performed very well. I'll have to go back through this thread and find that test because it's well buried by now. I had no problems stopping when going down or reversing up a slight grade (~5%) on a 1" thick sheet of ice. That being said, grooved tires can never compare to v-bar chains on solid ice. I suppose if you plow steep drives in an area with frequent ice storms chains may be the only solution. I just don't know, haven't done extensive testing with grooved tires in ice. And I've never even felt the need to add sipes which was in my original plan - but why cut more when what I have done does everything I've ever needed.

For the sake of science, you should groove the tires on your new machine. Carry your chains to put on if needed. And report back when winter's over (or after several winters are over). I'm interested to see how it pans out and if you ever put those chains on again. :2cents:

 

[greif]

Does this help with traction in the mud?

 

[gladehound]

Does this help with traction in the mud?

I don't think it does. And if it does it's such a small difference that it would be hard to test. Not worth it if you're only running in mud.

 

[PhysAssist]

I don't think it does. And if it does it's such a small difference that it would be hard to test. Not worth it if you're only running in mud.

I also doubt it would, but I do think it's interesting that my barn floor is a lot dirtier now than before I grooved mine- the grooves bring in a surprising amount of dirt and the thicker mud.

I wonder how much if any, that ability to trap the loose stuff in the groove adds to traction.

Pictures to follow when I get that proverbial Round Tuit.

Thanks again Ron for sharing this from the beginning, and while I am never at all anxious for the white stuff to come down and stay at all, I am curious to see what, if any, improvement my variation on grooving gives us.

Thomas

 

[gladehound]

I also doubt it would, but I do think it's interesting that my barn floor is a lot dirtier now than before I grooved mine- the grooves bring in a surprising amount of dirt and the thicker mud.

I wonder how much if any, that ability to trap the loose stuff in the groove adds to traction.

Pictures to follow when I get that proverbial Round Tuit.

Thanks again Ron for sharing this from the beginning, and while I am never at all anxious for the white stuff to come down and stay at all, I am curious to see what, if any, improvement my variation on grooving gives us.

Thomas

Can't wait for the pictures. And Yes, I have to broom the barn out a lot more frequently with grooved tires than before. But that pails in comparison to the amount of dirt my rear blade brings in!

 

[Glrret]

I ordered my groving iron yesterday. Now I was looking back on this post for a pattern I saw last years where someone had a double groove on his rear tires. It looks like several of the picture links no longer work. Does anyone have the pictures of the cardboard pattern that was shared?

 

[TSO]

I ordered my groving iron yesterday. Now I was looking back on this post for a pattern I saw last years where someone had a double groove on his rear tires. It looks like several of the picture links no longer work. Does anyone have the pictures of the cardboard pattern that was shared?

I double grooved my rears... just straight across horizontal, not following the lug pattern

 

[Luke'sScreenName]

I ordered my groving iron yesterday. Now I was looking back on this post for a pattern I saw last years where someone had a double groove on his rear tires. It looks like several of the picture links no longer work. Does anyone have the pictures of the cardboard pattern that was shared?

Which one did you get?

 

[Glrret]

TSO. "I double grooved my rears... just straight across horizontal, not following the lug pattern"

Do you have a picture of your pattern

 

[Glrret]

I ordered the 445-251 - Ideal Grooving Iron 110 Volt 250 Watt Heated Tire Groover w/ #4 Blade. The price has gone up sense this topic started but I got to it for $73 on eBay

 

[dickfoster]

You guys have sold me, I ordered and have received my grooving iron from EBay. I got the Ideal kit with the #2, #4 and #6 heads and blades. I was wondering how I was going to handle the snow and didn't want to resort to chains which would have torn up my asphalt drive. Now I'm not so worried about it. I'm thinking of using the #6 square cut 3/8" deep on the rear and the #4 set to 1/4" deep on the front lugs. Following the lug center on both front and rear tires since my lugs have a somewhat diagonal pattern which would equate to both forward and lateral traction.
BTW for those who haven't figured it out the numbers are the groove width in 16ths of an inch so the #2 is 2/16" or 1/8" the #4 is 4/16" or 1/4", the #6 is 6/16" or 3/8" etc.