You could then take these 18 inch long sections of tire cap,
and use then as roofing material for sheds and barns and such.
They would be installed in the same manner as cedar shakes roofing.
The roof would probably never need to be replaced.

This idea came to me one day as I was driving down an interstate highway
and I noticed a lot of tire caps from 18 wheelers on the side of the road.
Wouldn't it be great if they could be recycled.
And wouldn't it be great to have a roof that never needed replacing.

So how hard is it to cut up a tire.
What kind of machine would need to be designed to do this.

Pooh Bear

I'm not sure about this but there might be environmental polution with rain runoff. An outfit near me had rip rapped a creek bank with tires and I believe may have had to replace them for just that reason.

I tried to make a pair of sandels from a non radial nylon cord tire oncet. Just once. Couldn't do it but at that time there was place in Wartrace TN that did make em so it was possible. I didn't ask how either. If you're a Yankee in rural TN yew lerna kee yer mou sha.

I have a front door mat outside my front door. It was made from strips sliced from tire treads, and has lasted 30 years (still going). These were manufactured by the blind and sold door to door.

This mat was made by cutting the tread in narrow strips, drilling holes, then laying the strips on edge and assembling on rods with spacers. I note that there wasn't any steel showing in the tread.

One method for reducing old tires is to peel off the tread down to the steel belt, freeze the tread considerably below zero, then toss these pieces in a pulverizer. It simply breaks up when super cold.

I can think of other things for roofing material that is easier to work with. How about old aluminum license plates. But wait, these pieces are not big enough for roof shingles. We could use bigger pieces of aluminun. I'll bet if we looked around, we could find a farm aupply store selling corrogated aluminum sheets in 8ft lengths and these work just dandy for roofing (a little noisy when it sleets or hails). If you use the right nails, aluminum lasts a long time.

my house is over 105 years old, the roof was covered with aluminum about 50 or so years ago, no leaks yet, and I never had any noise issues so farr.
John

So I know this can't be done by hand.

But there are machines that shred tires.
So surely something could be created to make controlled cuts in tires.
I'm thinking mount the tire in a machine to rotate it.
As it rotates cut the sidewalls off. What is left is the cap.
Then another machine to make crosscuts on the cap.
Maybe a sheering type machine for this operation.
There are machines that will sheer steel plate. Why not tires.

I have always wondered:
I have seen news segments about tires being ground up into small pellets.
And this material is used to cover playground surfaces.
It is supposed to be superior to sand or mulch.
When they grind up the tires, how do they remove the metal.

There is a cement manufacturing plant near here.
They burn ground up tires to generate heat for the manufacturing process.
They had to construct huge filtering systems to controll air pollution.
But the cost was more than offset by the energy savings.
Especially now with gas prices being so high.

Pooh Bear

I would approach a couple of tire centres and look at using automobile tires, thinner and pick a type that is very popular in your area for consistency.

Cheers Doug

I don't live in a heavy snow region.
Haven't seen enough snow to cover the grass in years.
So I don't think weight would be a problem.

I'm thinking more of commercial and agriculture buildings for this.
Would be perfect for barns and sheds and doghouses.

The problems remains, how to cut them up.

Pooh Bear