Nifty. What tires did you use? How does it handle?
lol wow. Was that hard to do? Why not just buy a 3" tyre in the first place? 
Doesn’t that thing weigh a ton?
The tires were Kenda Kinetics 26x2.1
I have only ridden it for a few minutes in the yard but so far it feels pretty good. I am going to take it for a ride on Wednesday if the trails and weather cooperate.
If I decide to keep it as a tire instead of make moccasin bottoms out of it I might cut the side lugs off as they only clear my frame by about 1mm and are so far up the sidewall as to be useless for traction in any situation.
So how much does it weigh? 
why?
To see how it works. There was a guy wanting uber wide 24" tires for an undersized snow bike and I suggested doing this. after suggesting I decided to give it a try to see if it was good advice or not.
The two tires in the background are a 26x3 Gazz and a studded 26x3 Druo so I am not doing it because I really NEED a 3" tire.
Wow, awsome! EDIT: Sorry I didnt see the above posts.
I did not weigh it before installing it but weighing the unicycle now and knowing how much it weighs with the Gazz and how much that weighs I would say about 1200g vs 1670g for my Gazz
How did you do the join? Did you use somthing like fishing line?
I used a sewing awl meant for leather. The top/visible thread is whatever was on the spool and the bottom thread is some braided 30lb ice fishing line I got for free.
That is really nifty!
Can you do the same to join two small tyres together in the back to back rather than side to side and make a lightweight 36" tyre? I guess the bead would have to be cut which could be a problem. But maybe if you used two kevlar beaded tyres?
I really don’t think you want any radial seams on your tire. and a broken bead is a major problem.
I hope to get a 36er again fairly soon, before summer anyway, and will probably try to build up a lightweight tire. I think I would use the technique I experimented with in this thread though.
edit: when I came up with the idea of joining the two tires together I was actually thinking it would be cool to put a couple nightriders together for a high-volume 36er MUni and high floatation (for winter) tire. Then my beloved 36er died a horrible death between a Jeep Grand Cherokee and a Volkswagen Rabbit.
wow, really cool.
looks really good too, cant even really tell that you made it.
That’s amazing. I wonder how it will hold up to your testing.
I didn’t do my test loop like I was planning to yesterday so I did a quick out-and-back ride on a snowmobile trail with all 3 of my 3" tires this morning.
I modified the tire a bit before going out. I put a bead of silicone calking on the threads to protect them from abrasion and put a whole bunch of little strips of duct tape in the tire to protect the tube. To compensate for the added weight I cut off all the outside lugs which are really on the sidewall and never touched the snow anyway. Without the lugs on the sidewall it looked almost exactly the same width as a Gazzalodi 3.0. I weighted the tire after and it came out as 1260g.
The trail had a semi-firm base with loose granular snow on top. I only went out just over 1km. Mostly flat with more slope at the end.
I ride my frankentire, then my Gazz 3.0, then my Duro 3.0.
The frankentire was the lightest and felt the most nimble. It was much more bouncy than the other two tires and seemed to need the least amount of energy to keep going when on a firm surface but also had the least amount of grip on the slopes.
Not surprisingly the Gazz had the best float of all the tires probably due to its square profile. It also had the best grip in the looser snow and in the steeper sections.
My Duro is studded and I use a split innertube for a liner. The tread is modified a bit to help with loose conditions and get it to roll a bit better but it is still the heaviest tire I have and due to its round profile and stiff sidewalls it really is a poor choice for a snow tire. It really felt dead compared to the other two tires and was somewhere in the middle in the grip department. I only really use this tire when I expect to encounter lots of glair ice so it was a bit out of its element.
all and all I was quite impressed with how the tire handled the ride and think that it could be a real alternate for people who can not find/afford true fat tires and want some good volume. The silicone is starting to peel just a tad after only 2km so I think I am going to try to peel it off and use shoe-goo instead.
Cool, so did you also cut off two of the sidewalls?
yah, you can see I have about 8mm of sidewall on the top of the seam, I cut the inside tire about 2mm wider to give myself a bit of a margin of error.
Cool thanks.
Here are pics of the sidewall after the side lugs have been cut off and what is left of the silicone after only about 30km of riding. It stayed on OK at -5˚C but cracked and fell off at -20. Shoe Goo next time.
Expect a franken 29x3 within the next month.
Edit, forgot to mention, the traction was awesome on heavily packed snow on a well used toboggan hill. Not sure if it was the pointy center lugs or the relatively tight tread pattern. It took the drops like a champ and I think this tire is going to completely replace my Duro. I will still keep my Gazz for summer riding and floatation though.
Cool, was the silicon to seal the join?