Say Goodbye to Heavy and Light Splices in Truck Tires

Many components on Class 8 tractors are evolving at an unbelievable technological pace. You can count tires in that category.

Touring a modern tire manufacturing plant, such as the state-of-the-art factories owned by Double Coin, is a real eye opener. The level of automation and ultra sophisticated machinery used to make today’s medium/heavy truck tires is amazing to anyone who has been in the industry for some time.

Long timers will remember the old zero crown single stage tire building machines when tire splicing was done by hand. One of the most important splices in a tire is the inner liner splice. The inner liner is an extruded halobutyl rubber sheet compounded with additives that result in low air permeability. It assures that the tire will hold high-pressure air inside, without the air gradually diffusing through the rubber structure.

 If the inner liner is too light, it will tend to pull the body ply wires right through the light area. If the splice is too heavy, you will get uniformity issues. Faulty splicing tends to make the tire require more balance weight and really negatively affects tire uniformity.

Fortunately for everyone involved with truck tires, the days of the roll and gear stitchers are long gone . . . everything is automated. The builder only has to visually inspect the splices. All stock is precut and computers are responsible for changing stock dimensions. Heavy and light splices can still be found in tire inspections, but these cases are extremely rare now.

The Double Coin RLB400 closed shoulder drive tire is a great example of the extremely uniform tires that are rolling out of today’s advanced tire manufacturing facilities. Our customers love this tire for its long tread life and durable casing.

Please take a few minutes to view our new video for an inside look into Double Coin manufacturing processes and technologies such as our efforts to increase tire fuel efficiency (click on the banner below for more information on our fuel efficient tires).

I think you will gain a new appreciation for the technology and quality manufacturing that goes into producing today’s best truck tires. 

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