Tire / Tyre Flymo 1200r

After some 8 years of use the front tires on my Flymo 1200r finally failed. The rubberised compound had perished and it was starting to break-up.

One problem I have always had is that the early morning dew makes the grass cuttings stick to the tires completely blocking the tread and although this makes no difference to the operation of the mower it is perhaps an indication that the tread pattern could be improved. Although I am not naïve enough to think I could really improve on Husqvarna’s design of tire tread I thought I would go for it, and this is my ‘try it and see’ effort.

These prototypes have been made with ABS (and this appears to be working extremely well after some 9 hours use) and at this stage I have just secured them to the wheels each with 3 self tapping screws but I may make the final versions with TPU and secure them with mastic (Sikaflex). Its an ongoing project and I just love my cheap, Chinese, Anycubic, 3D printers.

I hope these tires may be useful to others - I have allowed just 1mm for shrinkage on the internal diameter but your mileage may vary.

By way of an interim report these tires have now done just over 30 hours work and are behaving beautifully. The tread pattern picks up just as much cut grass as the original tires, so no change there, but they are somewhat easier to brush clean. The traction grip is more than adequate but it is early days yet to see how they will cope with the small apples that are discarded from my trees. More information to follow as the season progresses.