Originally Posted By: expat
I used to work in a retread plant in BC back in the 80's doing Hot caps (like you have) and Bandag.
I guess standards vari across the industry. But our plant did not give any consideration to quality or safety. Case in point: When buffing a tire (stripping the oil rubber off)
you will find rust spots where the tread was punctured part way. You are required to grind out the rust and fill the void with new rubber.
But sometimes you put too much time into a casing only to find it full of rust.
Discarding the tire would cost money, so we were told to put the casing aside until the buffer blades were worn out, then strip out the steel belts on those junk casings with the worn out blades. I hated doing this, it was quite dangerous, steel belt wire would fly everywhere!
After the belt was removed, a layer of Bandag tread gum was wrapped around the casing to make-up, then wraped with new rubber along with the others on the orbitread machine.
Now, if that were not bad enough, the extra rubber would need extra time to cure in the mould, but 'time is money' and the guy running the Hot line needed to work (literally) by seconds when switching moulds. So more often than not all tires were cured the same!
There were lots of other dodges too.
They all look good when they come out of the mould and get the sidewalls painted. ;-)
Well there you go! Management imposed what it needed to stay open and the sidewalls made Retail Happy! I'd say you were batting 1,000.[color:#009900][/COLOR]