"Made-It-Myself" Wheel Crusher Also Cuts Tires

"Made-It-Myself" Wheel Crusher Also Cuts Tires TIRES/WHEELS Tire Turners, Cutters 29-1-44 You've never seen anything like this new portable wheel crusher that also doubles as a tire cutter. It's designed to crush car and small truck wheels. The problem is that it's difficult and time-consuming to get wheels out of old tires when they've been discarded together, especially once the wheel gets rusted to the tire. Inventor Eugene Luoma's machine crushes rims without taking the tire off, making it easy to separate the two. Then you can use an attachment to cut the tire into three chunks. "A lot of companies sell wheel crushers, and some sell tire cutters, but as far as I know no one offers a machine that can do both jobs," says Luoma. The patented, 2-wheeled rig is operated by an 18 hp V-twin electric start motor. To operate the machine, Luoma places the wheel on an angled steel pin. A hydraulic cylinder forces the crushing arms into the wheel. The arms crush the rim enough so that it ends up smaller than the center of the tire, so it's easy to separate the two. "It really works great - people who see it for the first time can't believe that one hydraulic cylinder can operate three linkage arms with enough force to crush a wheel," says Luoma. "It takes only about 20 seconds to crush a single wheel, so I can crush up to 120 per hour. The beauty of it is that it has only one hydraulic cylinder so there's very little to maintain. "The crushing arms are made from 1 1/4-in. thick T-1 steel. They apply about 50,000 lbs. of force on each arm. The linkage is connected to the crushing arms in such a way that the arms travel faster on the first half of their stroke. Once the arms get closer to the rim, they slow down even though the cylinder is still moving at the same speed. The leverage multiplies because of the angle of the linkage arms to the crushing arms." Each wheel rim weighs about 20 lbs., so at today's scrap steel prices you can make good money off wheel rims. I still have all the drawings, and would be willing to license the manufacturing rights to someone else. I think the machines could be marketed for $10,000 to $12,000." Once a wheel is crushed, a tire cutting attachment can be put in place that cuts the tire into three pieces. The attachment has three slots that match the crushing arms, with a hardened steel cutting blade on one side of each slot. The blades cut the tire as the crusher arms force the tire into the slots. "It works on any kind of tire including steel-belted tires. It just chops them up," says Luoma. "Each cutting blade is bolted on and has a symmetrical design, so if it gets dull you can flip it up to four times to expose four different edges. The cutting attachment weighs about 100 lbs., but the handle on top makes it easy to handle." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Eugene H. Luoma, 4423 Normanna Road, Duluth, Minn. 55803 (ph 218 721-3730 or 218 591-4382; home office and fax 218 721-4382; email: gene@zipitclean.com).

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