Uses for old tubes and tires

What creative uses do you have for old innertubes and tires? I’m a DIY kind of guy, and both of these things seem like nifty raw material for various projects and hacks. And I’ve got at least one of each that aren’t really suitable for service any longer. The rest of this post is more or less a list of things I know about or have been thinking about.

I know that an old innertube can be cut up into many patches for patching other tubes.

Years ago, I used the valve stem section and a blank section of innertube, with hose clamps, to pressurize a car radiator (removed from car) to find a leak to repair it. Is the valve stem part of the tube useful for anything else, other than removing the valve core to have as a spare?

I’ve seen where folks have wrapped a tube around a grab bar to improve grip or make it softer or something. I don’t have such a handle, but it’s the sort of use I’m asking about.

I was reading where you can use a piece of tire sidewall to patch a hole in a tire to keep it from opening up and spreading more or less as you would patch a tube, but from the inside. It’s not a long term thing, but maybe enough to eek some more life out of a tire that is not worn out yet or until you order and receive a new tire.

I’m thinking about wrapping some innertube around my lift handle to keep my uni from skittering so far if I UPD off the front. I don’t know how well that would hold up or how effective it would be. Maybe a piece of tire would be better. I don’t know how I’d do the same for the rear bumper, other than contact cement. I’d kind of like this to be reversible.

I juggle bottles, not for the danger aspect, but because I like the weight and form factor. They’re like a cross between clubs and (heavy) balls. I cover them in duct tape, but they still break. I was thinking maybe one or more layers of innertube and maybe even some tire in certain spots could reduce breakage. It might make them too heavy, though. And I’d have to figure out how to keep the rubber on. Rubber cement is an option, I guess. Or just another layer of duct tape. Heck, maybe the rubber could make plastic bottles jugglable by adding mass. No amount of rubber is likely to protect glass bottles from drops on pavement while still letting them be shaped like bottles, but maybe it will help with collisions, which is where most of my breakage has occurred.

Juggling club handle wrap for grippiness and a little bit of cushion. Cheaper than tennis/golf grip tape, and much wider.

I have the stock plastic pedals on my road uni. Not pinned, just those molded cleat things. The reason for that is more than I should go into here. Maybe some tire tread attached to the pedals would help grip a little? It’s still not going to be great in the wet, but maybe rubber on rubber will be better than rubber on plastic. Or maybe not, I haven’t tried it. The pedals are mostly fine for road, but I find my feet twist on them if it’s wet.

Tire tread cut out in the shape of shoe soles and glued on. I’ve seen this done, but I don’t recall whether car tire or cycle tire was used. The cycle tires I have are narrow enough that two strips would probably have to be glued on side by side. The thinner cycle tires, besides being something I have, would yield a less clunky (heavy and thick) result. This is for shoes that I use for riding and for yard work, so fashion isn’t exactly an imperative. These shoes already sport a few duct tape bodges for prophylaxis and repair.

I made something along the same idea. I had a spare brake fluid tank cap and I installed a tire valve on it so that I can bleed the brakes of my VWs (bus and beetle) on my own. No more need to ask someone to pump on the pedal as I open the bleeding nut on each wheel.

And torn inner tubes make great rubber band - much better than the “real” rubber band which dry up after some months/years.

My LBS made a great fitting rim strip for my KH 36er using a 26er tube cut to the proper width. Not that heavy and has worked much better then the old gorilla tape method, which gets really gooey over time and shifts and gets twisted, exposing spoke holes. And then when you take the tire off get ready for a total mess and hours trying to remove the gooey tape glue from the rim and tire!

You have made quite a good list already. But I’ll play along. It is certainly a material I use frequently for a variety of things.

I have used tubes for:

  • Cutting cross sections for rubber bands
  • patches
  • tie downs
  • padding when I clamp things in the vise so as not to mar the finish
  • I've cut rim strips from them when I was desperate. Honestly, not as much work as you might imagine. I'd do it again.
  • I'm using a valve in the end of an irrigation tube to supply air to my water rocket launcher.
  • I've cut rubber gaskets.
  • wrapped drainpipe to seal two sections during the flood last Fall.
  • and I'm sure more, but at the moment I can't recall.

Tires:

  • I glued a section of tread to the sides of some pedals so that my road shoes would work without the recessed cleat.
  • I have glued sections of tread to the bottom legs of stools to quiet them, and keep them from scooting around
  • I have used sidewall to patch another tire with a slice in the tread. Mixed results. Tire still bulged, but it didn't come apart.

you can use them as a tiedown strap on a bicycle rack to hold cargo, sometimes you don’t even need to cut them, and no one will steal them off your rack when you are parked like a bungee cord

saw this on pinterest

it’s a belt using the old tread and slices of the tube

Haha, that would probably go with the “spare tire” of the guy who wears that! :wink:

Nice. So when the next fool asks where my “other wheel” is, I can just lift up my shirt. Then they’ll be all confused because they’re not observant enough to see that my belt is not only attire, but also a tire. Also, that I’m showing them my belt, not my sorry excuse for abs and the waistband of my underwear. :wink:

I’ll have to be on the lookout for the parts for that. Right now, I’m using a piece of twine, and any belt that will hold up to being sweated on would be an improvement. As a side note, this twine does not hold up at all well in the wash. It only really had to last long enough to help me get some guitar stands home, and it did that, and it is now enjoying a longer, or at least more varied, service life than most twine can hope for.

In “normal” life, I wear suspenders, and when they get old, the elastic gives out and they get longer and longer so that they can no longer be worn normally. Maybe I can take the hardware from a pair of those and do something similar with a skinny road tire or two. Once I’m sure the rubber won’t mark my shirts up. Even if the shirt marking thing is a problem, it’s still a possibility for yard/house/mechanical work, which is where my old suspenders currently get used once I’ve hacked them to make them shorter.

What about suspenders made of tubes?

Also an option. But less stylin’ and “I’m a cyclist!” somehow. But stretchy, like the original elastic, which the tire tread wouldn’t be. It would certainly work better when using the original hardware as designed. Using tread, a different scheme would have to be used for length adjustment, since that hardware is pretty dependent on the strap being a certain thickness and tread would be too thick. Depending on the tube, it might be too thin/weak, but I guess the only way to find out for sure is to try it.

I don’t even have any narrow tires to do this with, so I haven’t thought all of the details through. I’ve got a biker friend who might if he doesn’t just throw them away like a normal person. I do have that 29er tube that split almost halfway around its circumference and practically screams to be put to this use. It’s in the basement, but I can kind of hear the muffled screams. I hope that’s the tube.

A hybrid using tube for the substrate and tread for decoration has occurred to me, but the length adjustment happens in the front, which is exactly where you’d put such decoration. It would interfere. On the other hand, since it wouldn’t stretch out, and this would be a custom fabrication for one particular wearer, you could just dial in the length and leave it.

If you got it juuust right, you could just have a few inches at the bottom of the front which is just bare tube to facilitate that adjustment. You’d have to declare that to be a feature, though, rather than a design defect. If you’re doing that, you might as well leave the back without tread as well, to balance out the design and to avoid the otherwise unnecessary weight. You could even be really weird (not a stretch for me) and do it backward so that the adjustment is in the back if you don’t have the two straps attached to each other. That leaves the whole front side and, optionally, shoulders, for decoration. You’d have the buckles digging into your back when you sit back in a chair, though. You’d get posture correction for free.

Contact-cementing some innertube to the back of the buckles may well help with that a bit. I may just see about doing that with some suspenders I have where the adjustment buckles happen to fall on my clavicles and get a bit painful, so, yet another use for tube.

You know what they say, people who juggle with glass bottles shouldn’t throw… uh, them. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’ve used old innertubes as shims for bike accessories, to make them fit and also stay put even without much tightening of the screws.

I used to use old pieces of tires on the bottoms of a pair of ski poles to push my BC wheel along, or even uphill.

I’ve seen old tires used as ‘shoes’ on stilts. I understand they’re softer and easier to walk long time if it’s doubled up. Hold it in place with a stainless hose clamp.

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Old 36er tube came in handy to drain away water from this leaking pipe allowing me time to go to the hardware store and get replacement parts.

I just remembered reading this thread which gave me inspiration and it saved the day. Thanks Idlux.

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A lot of cool recycled stuff here:

I sometimes use a piece of old inner tube rubber as a vibration isolator. The last time was between my wife’s bicycle frame and rear fender, to stop keep it from squeeking. It worked.

This is so cool - my wife just got back today from a trip to Barcelona and she bought me this gift:

It’s a very cool bag made out of tubes :slight_smile:

They have lots of cool bags designed out of tubes and other recycled materials:

https://www.facebook.com/vahoworks

instructables is always a good place if you want DIY projects