Tire Gardening . . . More Adventures!

MY GOAL !

I was delighted yesterday to see how easy it was to cut the side wall from a tire.  It only took about 5 minutes per tire . . . THEN I went for one of the bigger tires.  Did you know that in the big ole' tires, the steel belt goes all the way form the tread to the bead that is against the actual rim?  Not funny!

I noticed a difference when I drill the pilot hole to put the jig saw blade in.  The blade wouldn't fit, so I drilled a second one on the edge and made it longer.  Then I started to saw away, or so I thought.  I had to push that saw a lot harder and it went very slow.  Then the smoke started  sneaking out of where I was trying to cut . . . . . aw nice, burnt rubber .  . every one's favorite . . .  P-U!

I finally took the blade out, grabbed it with the fingers of my other hand . . . OUCH . .  that baby was HOT!  The good news is that I now realize that my numb finger has more feeling in it than I thought.  I took a look and saw little sparkly things in the rubber of where I had managed to force the blade through.  Ah ha moment here.  The steel belt went farther than I had realized.  So it was time to drill lots of exploratory holes.  They all did the same thing, in all of the tires that I have left to cut.

This morning I took my third little grandson and he helped me pick out some saws all blade that are hardened to cut through metal and just as soon as it stops raining out there, I will go and try one of those .. .  or see if I can sweet talk my main squeeze into doing it.  It is only about 63 degrees here today, after having several weeks of over 80 and even 2-3 days of going over 90 degrees.  All of us desert rats are going into a little shock here.

In the meantime, here are some pics of my first, successful, attempts at this new gardening adventures!




I just used an ordinary 1/4" drill bit to make the hole for the jig saw blade.












Using the blade with the larger teeth for metal cutting went around an average sized tire for a passenger car in about 5 minutes.  There was no belt in the side wall.








Wah La!!  Ready to be cleaned up and filled with a good garden mix!














The next tire was a large pick up tire with a steel belt up the entire sidewall.  When you drill the pilot hole in the side wall, it will kind of catch as it goes through the steel belt.  You will hear the wire break.  If you hear that, see if you know someone with a saws all if you don't have one.  I found the hardened blades made for metal at Home Depot.  I have also seen them at Lowe's, so they shouldn't be too hard to find.  Using those in the saws all, it took about 10 minutes to cut the side wall out.  the saws all takes more hand strength to hang on to but don't let that scare you gals off from getting this done if you need to.

The metal cutting blade for the jig saw didn't have the hardened blade and the teeth were worn almost all the way off by the time I had cut about 12"-14"in that steel belt.  Lesson learned.  Good blades pay for themselves.

Tomorrow is Sunday, so this project will be completed on Monday.  "See" you then!!