DIY tire chans

metz12

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So, has anybody ever made their own tire chains before? i need some bad for my craftsman but they are to dang expensive! my dad can get chain form work which would be cool, but just curious how i would make them. thanks in advance.
 

reynoldston

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So, has anybody ever made their own tire chains before? i need some bad for my craftsman but they are to dang expensive! my dad can get chain form work which would be cool, but just curious how i would make them. thanks in advance.

Yes I made my own. I was given a old set of car tire chains that I made my from. If you have to buy very much to make them I would say it wouldn't be worth making them.
 

metz12

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Yes I made my own. I was given a old set of car tire chains that I made my from. If you have to buy very much to make them I would say it wouldn't be worth making them.

well those links to attach different pieces of chain together go for like 2 or 3 bucks a piece. and there would be a lot of those on each tire
 

mowerman05

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I have a old set but not sure what size they are. can you measure around the tire and the width and let me know. I will check the length and width of the chains I have as well, maybe we can make something work.
 

reynoldston

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I have a old set but not sure what size they are. can you measure around the tire and the width and let me know. I will check the length and width of the chains I have as well, maybe we can make something work.

I had to cut mine down to fit. All the extra parts left over I put in a box. New every once in a wile when they need repairs I have extra parts.
 

de dee

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So, has anybody ever made their own tire chains before? i need some bad for my craftsman but they are to dang expensive! my dad can get chain form work which would be cool, but just curious how i would make them. thanks in advance.

for the tire chain parts look up (tire chain .com and you will see what you need,.
 

BWH

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So, has anybody ever made their own tire chains before? i need some bad for my craftsman but they are to dang expensive! my dad can get chain form work which would be cool, but just curious how i would make them. thanks in advance.

I made a set for my old Bolens 1455 which runs fairly wide terra tires, I cut them down from an old set of semi-truck chains from the 1950's we found on an abandon farm. The interesting thing about truck chains from the 1950's that I discovered is the extremely high carbon steel content, these were so hard that when I cut the bars to the proper length with a pair of bolt cutters (28") cutting one side the other side of the link would just snap with both half's sent flying each direction (you actually had to be careful where they were flying).

I have used these chains for more years than I would like to admit, they have worn 75% or so but I'm sure I would have gone through numerous sets of the soft chain of standard sets. If you watch you will still see sets of older pickup truck chains on estate auctions that normally sell reasonable (especially in the summer months).
 

metz12

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I made a set for my old Bolens 1455 which runs fairly wide terra tires, I cut them down from an old set of semi-truck chains from the 1950's we found on an abandon farm. The interesting thing about truck chains from the 1950's that I discovered is the extremely high carbon steel content, these were so hard that when I cut the bars to the proper length with a pair of bolt cutters (28") cutting one side the other side of the link would just snap with both half's sent flying each direction (you actually had to be careful where they were flying).

I have used these chains for more years than I would like to admit, they have worn 75% or so but I'm sure I would have gone through numerous sets of the soft chain of standard sets. If you watch you will still see sets of older pickup truck chains on estate auctions that normally sell reasonable (especially in the summer months).

how'd you attach them together?
 

exotion

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What ever happened to just drilling a bunch wood screws into the tire lol we had a set at my last job we would tame the tire off the wheel and drill about 50 screws through it so the .pointy side was hitting concrete like studs and then we remounted them with slime
 
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