DIY Lawn Mower Retreads

Mowing the lawn is something I find invigorating from time to time. It gives me a feeling of accomplishment. I've had my Wal-Mart Yard Pro since 2008. So far it has given good service. When it comes to maintenance namely, changing the tires because of tread wear, it takes some work. Work that I am not willing to pay for and something I have no idea how to do. 

Right now I have an excellent yard man who does my postage stamp of a lawn.  He fertilizes, weeds and clips the shrubs.

I would like to have it done every two weeks but, that can get into money I'd like to spend elsewhere so, he comes once a month. If I can get my mower running, I can cut in between times. Mowing the lawn has always given me a feeling of accomplishment and releases my endorphins.

I found this YouTube video to be helpful. I changed things up just a bit to fit my circumstance. Some of  the videos I viewed instructed getting an old bicycle tire, cutting the circumference and gluing it on the tire with rubber cement or silicone glue. Since the stair tread below had an adhesive backing, I chose it instead.

I bought the adhesive stair tread from Harbor Freight.

Measured and cut tread.

Following is what I meant by "my circumstance." The tutorial tells you how to retread a tire but not a BALD tire. I'm adventurous in this respect so I'm willing to experiment and see what happens. After all, it couldn't get worse.

Since the adhesive wouldn't stick, I used a heavy duty stapler.  This will hold it in place until I can get the 1/2 in. sheet metal screws.

Each stair tread is about 17 in. long and  4 inches wide.  The width of my tire was 1 1/2 inches.  You can see where I've cut it to width in  picture #  one. The length would not cover the entire circumference of the wheel so I had to cut a shorter strip to fill in the gap. If you look closely at picture # three you can see where I abutted the second piece to the first.

It's important that you join the two ends together as close as possible.

I'll be following this up with the screws and removing the staples.  I'll give you an update in a future post.

That's it***