where is best place to buy one of those rubber hogs? or is there something that works faster?

also ...what to use air or electric? slow or fast? does the rubber hog need anything else to work like a bolt that it bolts onto or anything like that might need....

anyinput is appreciated

Rubber hog is the best for sharpening. Will wear you and your grinder OUT trying to cut a tire with it, though.
Electric works best for my son. Air grinders bog down. YOu will have to increase the size of the hole with a step bit or something to put one on a 4 1/2" grinder. I thin they will fit right on a 4". You need a good grinder. Harbour Freight or similiar prolly wont make it one whole tire.

Be careful!! It will eat your a$$ up if you let it get away from you. Wear protective clothing,leather gloves, eye protection and let the grinder do the work, dont force it.

Larry

thanks for the help

is there anythnig you use like a knife to majority off before shaping tire?

Yes. There are large "instant hot"tire cutting guns for around $400 that you can go up to 1" wide blade (maybe even bigger), and smaller ones that heat up like a soldering iron for about $80, 1/4" blade works good in it. The smaller one will do the job by itself, but expect to spend 8 hrs per tire at least.
Dakotah uses both. He trims around with the little one, then cuts out the bulk of it with the bigger cutter. There was a thread a while back that discussed the main two big cutter brands, and Curt came up with a slick way to use a sharpened piece of pipe welded to an arbor and mounted in a drill. Maybe search will find it, or someone can give you a link. I cant even remember which section it was in.

Lary

what kind of tire are you cutting? I have never cut or grooved a firestone, but I can help if yuor cutting a super swamper. All you need to cut is a sawz-all and a wood cutting blade. And to groove the tire we use just a regular gooving iron, you can find them at any race car shop. I always use a tire marking pen to mark the pattern I want to cut out of the tire. YOu can eye-ball it, but its worth the extra time to me to make sure and cut the right lugs off the tire!

_________________
If its got boobs or a motor its gonna give you trouble!!

We use a butter knife dipped in oil to cut the big lugs off our boggers then trim them up with a tire groover.

we use a wood cutting chisel that you can buy at any hard wood store heat it a little with a propane torch and it cuts like a hot knife in butter .The key is the heat to much the tire tries to melt and not enough it is harder to push

Here is where I ordered a rubberhog

http://www.bizrate.com/miscellaneousaut ... p+top.html

_________________
If your clutch ain't slippin,, you probably got it adjusted right!!!!!

which one of these do you perfer

http://www.alltiresupply.com/p-RH-150.html
http://www.alltiresupply.com/p-RH-130.html
http://www.alltiresupply.com/p-RH-114.html

also if its not to much to ask, how long they last? bout how many tires? just didnt know if i would need one per tire or anything like that

More like this one,

http://www.alltiresupply.com/p-RH-108.html

,,not to say that it is the ideal one for you. I have sharpened my boggers and vtreads and the rubberhog is showing no wear. Brucey would be a better one to ask.,,I miss Brucey,,,maybe ask them Jelly boys,,they know there tire cutting stuff.

_________________
If your clutch ain't slippin,, you probably got it adjusted right!!!!!

The rubber hogs last a long, long time. Probably twenty sharpenings on two firestone diggers wouldnt even slow it down. Other tires have different , harder compounds, so dont know about using them on something else for a prolonged time. Probably still get more than your money's worth out of it.
Just know that you can do way more harm than good if you aint careful. I'm speaking for diggers only, but its not something you can really describe or tell how to do. You can look at another tire and try to make yours look the same, but it aint that easy. Its kinda like doing good straightening work on a car frame, someone can talk all day telling you every little thing and technique to doing it, but until you've put several on the rack and actually fixed them, the verbal instructions do you no good. Any one can do it eventually, but only some can do it well ever.

I showed my son the basics of tire sharpening from watching others, he gathered more info from guys who been doing it for years, and he's practiced at it. I feel like an idiot trying to sharpen tires next to him now. But he still doesnt like to do it, and I gotta bribe him to do mine. It is a nasty , hot (with all the protective clothes), messy job.

Larry