Probably a strange question, but how are paddle tires made? I've heard things said here and other places that lead me to believe that some paddle tires are not molded orginally to be paddles, but are made from exisiting tires into paddles. Also, I was just looking at the Skt Trak site and on their price list they have 2 prise, customer tire and Skat Trak tire, the customer tire price being half o what the other price is. So do they take a tire you give them and take it down to bare bones and then mold paddles on or what? Also, why do Skat Trak tires have that rough texture to them? Lastly, what does buff mean, as in bead to bead buff?

Skat trak utilized worn tires by shredding the knobbies off, also known as buffing. Once the surface is prepped ie. the buffing, they take precast rubber paddles and attatch them to the tire by the vulcanization process which is basically like melting the paddle onto the tire. For lighter weight purposes, they can buff the tire from the inside bead to the outside bead, removing unecessary rubber from the tire to reduce rotational mass. This is what gives it that shredded texture.

nuck is on the money with his story'' butt''they actually use new nobbies , not old one's , they put the tire on a high speed lathe an metal fingers come down an shred the nobs off to buff them clean''then the paddle's get melted on'' u can take your use'd nobbies to them,and they can buff them clean for 16bucks per tire'' i only no this because they are rite by my house,and im a regular there''''

yeah theyre light, my 21x21x8s weigh 14 pounds a peice on .160 wheels

Does having all that rubber ground off make them go flat a lot? Seems like being that thin they would have sticks and rocks and crap popping them all time

Well considering they are primarily ridden only in sand, there isn't much to puncture them. Even with abundant sandstone rock outcrops in the dunes where I ride, I've never had a puncture or flat. I have heard the tripple buff paddles are very thin and usually only used for drags in nothing but sand. I'm sure having the thinner rubber is definately more prone to puncture.

all other paddle tires are molded as paddles.

sand tire unlimited maks sand skate 1 and padla brats which are molded then shaved down for a light tire. it is very common to see the cords of the tire on these and they do loose air. but they are very light. my 21-12-8 6 paddle brats weigh 9.3#s on .125 wheels.
brats only come 18, 9, and 6 paddle

i believe also, that you can have brats "play cut" which doesnt take as much rubber off, not exposing the cords.

Even out in Glamis it isn't 100% sand all the time. There are all those bushes, rocks and glass that assholes leave laying around to pop tires, not to mention riding across the wash roads or out to the bar. I'm just wondering how they hold up to all of that. Although, a lot of people out there have them, so i guess they don;t go flat that much. Then again, there a re a lot of people out there w/ more money than sense or just plain old no sense.