Tire repair idea (Is this dumb?)

Okay, so my wheelbarrow tires went flat.  (What genius ever decided to inflate something with air that was designed to be used with sticks and thorns?)

I decided I needed solid rubber tires,  looked at the price, and decided I didn't need solid rubber tires.

Well, the internet to the rescue!  I "learned" you could fill your old tires with expanding foam insulation!  Hurray!

Then I drove it for awhile and learned that expanding foam insulation will just crush.  Okay, not hurray.

Which brings us back to doe.  I could go out and dump some change on a real tire, or...

What do you guys think aabout filling the tires with aircrete!?  I think it would handle the weight fine, but do you think it would survive bumping over a few rocks now and then?

I use tire slime. Its common in usa in automotive stores.  With no air in tire, you hand pump  or pour the slime into the tire valve (after removing the valve itself). Then air it up and use it. I think it hardens when exposed to air so it will flow into a leak then seal it.

What i don't like about your suggestion is how to know the tire is full. What if it is 3/4 full of the aircrete, leaving 1/4 as a big air bubble. How does air get from the valve, through the aircrete, to where its needed,? It  seems like the chance to totally ruin the whole tire is high. I envision a big flat spot in the tire that is worse than just being low on air. I also don't know that it would have more compression strength than foam.

I have had forklift tires foam filled.  It was done professionally. Over time i had exposed foam from pieces of tire coming off. It never crushed. Cost is not feasible for a wheelbarrow, but for commercial machinery it is viable.

A fellow sailor fished a PennyFarthing bicycle out of a French harbor and used garden hose to make tires, so after the Apocalypse you might think about fitting your barrow with bicycle wheels, heh heh, but here's a link to some barrow tire innertubes on Ebay (free shipping)
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=wheelbarrow+tire+inner+tube&_sacat=0&rt=nc&LH_FS=1

Burl Smith wrote:A fellow sailor fished a PennyFarthing bicycle out of a French harbor and used garden hose to make tires

Okay, this is totally off-topic but for the sake of curiosity, how did he join the ends and not have a bump at the connection?

Not so off-topic if you attempt to use recycled rubber from car tires.

Here's an account I ran across while researching home made sandals:
   
      "...He punched discs out of tires to make bicycle tires (for those who were lucky enough to still have a bike.) You bought enough of the discs, drilled or burned holes in the center, and ran a sturdy fence wire through the holes. To mount these 'tires' one twisted the fence wire until it was tight enough take up any slack. It was a very hard ride, especially on the old cobblestone roads, but it was better than walking for some people."

I too am wondering if I can make DIY hard tires out of some old cracked/brittle ones. Maybe I could slice it open (still on the wheel) along the circumference, fill it with some solid substance (maybe I'll try wrapping hoses as mentioned here), and seal it back up. What could I bond it/seal it with?

How about a wooden tire? Turned on a lathe.
Better easier than carved stone like the Flintstones used.

Having used an air filled tire, a foam filled and solid tire, the air tire is by far the best and easiest to handle.
Bicycle tired are getting pretty good at being puncture proof today, I am sure something similar can be done for a wheelbarrow.
You will need an inner tube and some heavy material as a liner that thorns do not make it though.

I used to work with a guy that built demo derby cars. He'd cut apart a tire, removing the bead and some of the sidewall, so that it would fit inside another tire. then he'd mount that double tire to the rim, and put a tube inside of that. He said it was basically bombproof, but it took about 3 hours to mount up one tire. Perhaps you could do something similar-some sort of puncture proof liner inside your tire (like an old cut -apart tire), and then a tube.

Similar to James' idea.

You could line the inside tread of the tire with a piece of rubber from another tire, then mount it with on the rim and put in a inner tube and you should have a tire that is much more puncture resistant.

James Bridger wrote:I used to work with a guy that built demo derby cars. He'd cut apart a tire, removing the bead and some of the sidewall, so that it would fit inside another tire. then he'd mount that double tire to the rim, and put a tube inside of that. He said it was basically bombproof, but it took about 3 hours to mount up one tire. Perhaps you could do something similar-some sort of puncture proof liner inside your tire (like an old cut -apart tire), and then a tube.

A simpler version of this that I've read about involved putting a strip of used carpet inside the tire. I think they held it in place temporarily with some sort of glue or double-sided tape, then added the inner tube. The idea was that there is more depth a thorn needed to get through to reach the inner tube.

I do the same thing with my body when dealing with Himalayan blackberry - wear 2 gloves on my left hand which tends to be handling the material. Only 1 on my right which needs to cope with tools, but is further from danger most of the time... I decrease the risk of body punctures, but don't eliminate it. That stuff is nasty!