Tire Buffing Machine is a widely used tire retreading equipment. The other known names include Tire Buffering Machine, Tire Buffer, Tire Buffing Apparatus, or Raspers.

When you get a tire that passes all the initial checks and is certified as a worthy candidate for retreading, your first job is to buff this tire. Buffing is the process by which you remove all the old-worn tread on the tire, and prepare the tire casing for the application of a new tread. Buffing also trues up (the roundness) your tire casing. A buffed tire gives you a textured surface on the tire casing and this aids in proper adhesion with the new retread that you will later apply on this surface.

Typically, a tire buffing machine has a rasp pedestal and a connected mobile assembly to swing the rasp pedestal perpendicularly. Each rasp pedestal has a rasp head and a texturing device. The rasp pedestal rotates about a vertical axis. A tire hub assembly on this machine rotates the tire casing. The tire buffer is controlled by an operator station through an operator console unit.

You get tire buffing machinery to buff all the available tires – large or small size, radial or bias, two-wheeler or OTR. The speed of spindle varies according to different tire size. Usually lower speed is apt for bigger tires, and higher speed suitable for smaller tires. These are all free-standing machinery and equipped with a dust collection system for pollution control. 

Safety mechanisms to increase life of the grinder, automation of operations through computer-controlled programming, ancillary equipment like tire loaders, automatic lifting and centering of your tire, measuring device to ascertain steel wires (and thus prevent its damage), efficiency and precision of buffing, automatic blade-wear compensation, automatic reverse rotation of buffing head, blade cooling, sound-proof enclosure and overall user-friendliness will differ from manufacturer to manufacturer depending on the machine you select.

However, the operations are mostly similar and easy to visualize. First you mount the tire onto the expandable hub on the tire buffing machine. Then you inflate the this tire to its normal running shape. This action ensures that your tire is buffed to the correct profile and radius. When you delve deeper into this subject, you will notice that every tire buffing has its specific settings to be considered on the machine (either manually or automatically programmed). Few of these settings include Expandable Rim Number, Tread Size, Radius, Trim Angle, Cut Depth, Shoulder measurements (left, crown and right), and finished buffed circumference. Attention to these parameters ensure that your final retreaded tire provides its peak performance always.

Before you start buffing, care has to be taken that impregnated stones or foreign materials that could cause potential damage to the tire buffing machine needs to be removed by the operator. And always start buffing at the highest part of the crown of the tire. This prevents overloading of the buffer. Operate your tire buffer until all of the tread design is removed.Then you buff the shoulder and side walls as is appropriate to your retreading process.

If you leave much of under-tread on the rim, you will find it very difficult to skive the casing (for repair). Also excessive under-tread can cause high heat generation when the tire is put in use. This can lead to retread failure. On the other hand, if you do not have enough under-tread, this can affect the bond between the casing and the new retread you will apply on the textured surface.

Summarizing, tire buffing is part of the tire retreading operation and tire buffing machine removes the tread of your worn tires.

I look forth to your comments.

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