Anyone know anything about regrooving tires

[1992explorerMi]

I just have some questions. How do you know if you can regroove a tire how do you know how far to go??

 

[funfool]

You dont really know how far to go.
But first off, regrooving is really for truck tires. I cant imagine regrooving any tire you would run on a explorer.

As a old truck tire retreader, we hated tires that had been regrooved, simply RAR them. Return as received.
The tire construction has the tread, then the under tread and then the belts.
You will regroove the under tread that is between the belts and the tread.
On a semi truck tire, they are made to be retreaded a few times. 10/32 under tread kinda seems normal, every brand could be different.
On a passenger / light truck tire, there is only a few 32's under tread, just enough to protect the belts.
You can still regroove them, there is just not a lot to be gained from it.
What you can do, use a sharp skinny round probe. Insert it into the under tread and see how far it is to the belts.
This will leave little damage and tell you how much under tread is there.
Now remember, every time you go to deep and knick a belt, you have a spot where water will get in and start rusting the belts and destroy the tire.

What I did for tires, I had found a really nice set of michelin 31x10.50x15, I retreaded them with bandag brand, commercial traction deep.
I would not put that heavy of a tread on for a customer, and gave a warranty.
But I had them on the truck for a few years, and had great mud and snow traction. The tread was not wearing down at all, they still looked like new when I sold the toyota 4x4 truck.
Look for a bandag retread shop near you, talk to them and they can help a lot with doing section repairs in sidewalls and saving the tires, or retread your good casings to get more life.
A good retread shop can be a wheelers best friend. These tires are not cheap.

 

[1992explorerMi]

I just wanna take off like 1/32 off these to clean up the lower treads and resharpen the corners a lil

 

[funfool]

Sorry I got a little long winded in my first reply.
Somehow think understanding basic tire construction is important.
Now in your case, it looks like you might want to work on the shoulder area. This area has the most under tread rubber, as it is shifting from the face of the tire to the sidewall.
So you have some room to play here

Sad thing is, running a grooving iron is a artistic talent, it has some presets and adjustments, but not much.
And it would do what you want, once you swear the appropriate amount of swear words.
And even then, it would take several hours. I would think you would finish your task.
And then in the future, simply never even think to do it again ... but just my thoughts after spending many many hours behind a grooving iron.

And my first thoughts, I would use a air grinder with the right disk on the end to shape the rubber lugs the way you want.
The rubber would be rough, but wear smooth with time ... but just a hard place for time to get to to wear it smooth.
On the other hand, the rough texture will add more traction.