Rubberhog® Extreme Vane Wheels for Tire Retreading & Tread Buffing
Stackable tungsten-carbide wheels used for preparing the bonding side of pre-cured tread rubber.
Rubberhog® Extreme Vane Wheels are wave washer-shaped discs that can be stacked on a shaft to create a buffing cylinder of nearly any width. This modular design allows the wheel stack to be configured to match the width of the tread being processed.
While the general concept is similar to stackable coated wheels used in the past, Extreme Vane Wheels deliver significantly higher performance. This is achieved through Rubberhog’s Extreme MCM® structured teeth, which features an aggressive pattern of sharp conical tungsten-carbide teeth that remove rubber efficiently while maintaining long service life.
Application
Extreme Vane Wheels are most commonly used in retreading operations to prepare the bonding side of pre-cured tread rubber. In many tread preparation systems, they are used as replacements for one or more stacks of wire brushes traditionally used for this operation.
Because the carbide wheels remove material more efficiently and last much longer than wire brushes, they can significantly reduce the cost of consumables used in tread preparation.
In most installations, the Vane Wheels are used in combination with wire brush stacks. The carbide wheels perform the majority of the work while the remaining brush stacks provide flexibility for cleaning low areas. This combination greatly reduces brush wear and extends the time between brush replacements.
While the general design of these wheels somewhat resembles the shape of stackable coated wheels made by others in the past, the Extreme Vane Wheels offer vastly higher performance in terms of throughput rate, buffing temperature, and service life. This advanced performance occurs because these wheels utilize Rubberhog’s much more effective Extreme MCM carbide coating, consisting of an aggressive pattern of very sharp conical carbide teeth.
The most common application for the Extreme Vane Wheels is as replacements for the stacked wire brushes used in buffing the back (bonding) side of pre-cured tread rubber. The Vane Wheels are very long lasting, and can greatly reduce the expenditures for consumable wire brush wheels. Generally, the Vane Wheels do not replace the wire wheels entirely, but rather, they replace one or more in-line brush stacks, with the remaining brush stacks still used to take advantage of their flexibility in cleaning up low areas. In this manner, the workload on the brush stacks is greatly reduced, lengthening the time between brush replacements. According to Rubberhog, the combined cost of replacing Vane Wheels and brushes together is much lower than the cost of replacements when only brushes are used.
