<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Verne_Frantz</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Thanks for the lead whitetop. I was planning to look for something to fill the tears & missing areas before I remounted them. I appreciate the suggestion very much.
PS: I work on a farm and have many supplier contacts so I shouldn't have any trouble finding it! </div></div>
Verne, I bought mine from Miller Tire is Ohio-they sell antique farm tires.
I spoke with the guy at Miller Tire and he said they grind theirs after a day or so so I let mine cure for 2 days and then hit it with a 30 grit sanding disk to ground the bulk of it off. What he forgot to tell me is they use heat lamps to fast cure it. If I had to do it over again I would have let it "gas out" for a week or so because I left it maybe a 1/8 higher than the rest of the tire but when I went back to smooth it out with finer grit disk a week or two later it had shrunk below the level of the tire so I just left it as be. The gouge is about 1.5 " wide at the top and goes all the way down into the lug maybe 2" or so and is about 3.5-4" long. There is actually 2 gouges on the tire.
I guy in my area restores old tractors and he had a set of tires that were an oddball size and obsolete with major gouges and lugs missing and he filled them in and formed the missing lugs and with progressively finer grits of disk you cannot tell the repair. I think he ended up with 1000 or 1500 grit paper.
The trick is apply a 1/8 layer or so at a time and stitch it in very good with the stitch wheel-a small wheel with prongs that alleviates air bubbles. I made up a ball of the stuff and just kept applying it in layers, stiching it and then going on to the next layer.
I still have the A&B putty but the cataylist dried up. At $75 for the kit if you can just by the cataylst I will send you the putty.
As I said I did mine about 4 years ago and it is holding up great. I plow 3 gardens with it in crappy rocky soil and plow in 5 degree weather, brush hog every week and it is still in one piece and my tires with fluid are a 1000 lbs each. .It says on the can not to use it on auto tires but on a rim portion I would think you would be ok.
The stuff is somewhat spongy for 2-3 weeks and then dries as hard as regular tire rubber.
