Blackwall tire smoothies

Anybody ever tried grinding the gaudy, italic modern raised lettering off a blackwall radial and then polishing/buffing the rubber out to a somewhat uniform surface?
It occured to me that a basic truck radial would look alright if it didn't have the big, ugly "KUMHO VENTURE" or "YOKOHAMA GEOLANDAR" etc. on the side of it.
-David

 

Been doin it for years, chainer customers don't like to advertise for people. Without gettin paid!........OLDBEET

 

Um, yeah, you lost me there on the advertising thing.
So, any chance you could clue me and others in on the polishing process? Or do you just grind the lettering away and leave the rough, dull spots?
-David

 

PM lilmike. He grinds EVERYTHING off of the tires before they leave his dads shop.

 

I'm interested in this, too.....

 

Sounds like a great topic for "Tech Week"

 

Here's what I'm faced with..I've taken so long to finish my roadster project that the tire size I want to run (285/70/R15) is only made now by just a few companies and only in Raised White Letter...My only option seems to be to mount the RWL to the inside and paint over the letters..Never painted tires before and not sure what to use if I have to....So to go along with this thread ,has anyone ever tried to grind off just the white letters ? Any SWAG's as to how deep the white rubber goes? Or does anyone know of a source for blacwalls in the size I want? I've tried all the local sources and looked online... Stan

 

If you end up usin white lettered tires and put the letters to the inside; just spray-bomb em w/ some cheap flat black paint. If you do this on new , clean tires it will hold up real well and look fine. Most spray-bomb flat blacks have a little sheen which will match your clean new tires. Just my 2 cents.

 

If you grind off your raised white letters, you're going to have a whitewall before you have a blackwall. Lots of guys buy RWL tires then grind down to the whitewall. What looks like just letters on the surface is actually a uniform 3" wide band of white rubber underneath.

As far as grinding letters down, start with an 80 grit grinding disc to knock the really high stuff off, then sand smooth with an 80 grit sandpaper on a DA sander. Sanding the tire down to 80 leaves a nice smooth surface, you don't have to sand further than that.

Also, practice on a couple old junk tires first. When I do it, I like to set a big trim ring inside the tire so I avoid grinding the bead edge at all. The trim ring makes a nice grinder guard.

 

Squablow & rusty....Looks like it's RWL's flipped to the inside with a rattlecan paintjob then ..... Thanks for the great info.. Stan

 

ITS A LITTLE BIT OF WORK ....BUT WORTH THE TIME....I DID MY HURST SLICKS A COUPLE YEARS AGO......COUNDN'T HANDLE THE GOODYEAR WRANGLER ON THE SIDES......BRANDON

 

The same could be said for some of the streets I see in the ghetto when I go to work...

 

I would think rattle can paint would crack with a flexing tire. What about shoe polish? Maybe a big can of Kiwi Parade gloss black? You could do a few coats and shine it up real nice. There's also one that comes in a small plastic bottle with a sponge applicator called "Instant Spit Shine". I've used that on my boots for the last 9 years (I'm in the navy) and it worked well without cracking.

I'm thinking about sanding the raised letters and trying the spit shine.
-David

 

Ever get paint overspray on a whitewall tire? That shit sticks pretty damned good. With the tires turned to the inside, it's not going to show much anyway. Could grind the letters flush before painting, to make it even less noticeable.

 

I agree! I've spray painted quite a few tires with Krylon 1613 semi-flat black. I've even repainted around curb scrubbed whitewalls to clean them up. If you are painting over white letters, be sure to scrub the blue off first. The blue they coat with is actually a type of soap.

 

Plastikote make some stuff called Bumper Black made for rubber bumpers. I've used it on a pair of white walls, but I haven't put any real miles on them yet so I can't say how they're holding up.

 

Diamondback offers its tires ground and polished, they look nice, cant tell they have been messed with. Think successively finer grits, just like sanding anything.

 

I saw those but, man, that's way too much money for me. I could get 2 'HO's (which I have on 2 other vehicles and seem to be good bang for the buck) for less $$ than 1 of those.
Thankfully, I never got black spray on my whitewalls. Even if it doesn't crack, seems like paint might look odd. Maybe not. I'm still liking the shoe polish idea after sanding letters.
-David