Heelychat, the forum for heelys, the shoes with wheels - View topic

Joined: 15 Jun 2008 Posts: 1391 Location: UK

Whilst thinking about the problem of Big Deuces being too soft, I rememebred a trick I use on new car tyres: if you run then for a dozen miles to get the initial protective coating off, then take them off and store them for a year or so, the silicon/rubber compound hardens a bit, meaning you lose a little bit of stickyness, but gain a lot in lifespan - I usually use soft-silicon compounds (like Goodyear Eagle NCT-5s) for when I'm doing sportier driving, which tend to only last me about 3000 miles of hard driving, but my current "commuting" tyres are just cheap Pirelli P-Zero Nero's, which so far have done 17,000 miles and still have about 70% of their tread left on them - because I left them to harden for a year first.

So, I was wondering if anyone who knows about the compounds involved in Heely wheels could tell me if this would work for Big Deuces, or if there is anything that could be done to standard Big Deuces to harden the 86a durometer stuff they're made of, without damaging them of course? I realise theyr'e not the same stuff as car tyres, but thought something might be possible, maybe with gentle heating and cooling or something?

I don't think any of those techniques work on urethane.

Instead of scrape n' sit, why not add the hardening compound to the wheel (acrylic for an idea)

Joined: 15 Jun 2008 Posts: 1391 Location: UK

It's a possibility I guess? Smile

Maybe if you started with smaller BD's than needed and build them up a bit? But the added outer coating would have to be wicked strong so that it didn't crack and peel off under the weight of the heeler. . . . hmm, might not be possible, or might end up costing more than making your own BDs. Oh well, it was worth a shot. Smile

My point is why would you want to make custom BD's?

The wheel is stationary on both ends vs Free Spins act like a Limited slip differencial.

The Free Spins takes the flaws of the BD's (wheel compound, no differential motion) and improves.

So instead of making Harder compound BD's, make a pair of Free Spins about the width of a common bearing, and then put a metal spacer between them. That way you have the ability to enjoy the really only benefit of a BD without having to sacrafice performance.

Joined: 15 Jun 2008 Posts: 1391 Location: UK

Hmm, I get what your saying, but tbh I've never really found there to be any advantage to freespins, but that may only be because I can't yet do some of the tricks where freespins would be advantageous? Smile

For example, I've done spinning tricks like 180s/360s with solid wheels, and two-part freespins and found the freespins to not really make much difference - maybe once I am trying to learn footy 360s the advantage of the freespins would become more apparent?

On the other hand, I've noticed definite advantages to using BD's, mostly on the street, where so far I've never caught a pebble in my wheel, like I do with Mega's (and sometimes even freespins).

Now, I have a friend who has size 12 feet so he needs LARGE Mega size wheels, but he's huge and solid muscle, so he destroys normal Mega's so fast, I didn't think there would be any point in giving him the slightly softer BDs? Smile

And yet he does keep having trouble with stones getting caught in his Mega's, and so I promised to make him some wheels that were BD-shaped (to prevent pebbles) but very hard (so they wouldn't slow him down on smooth floors.

Hope that explains why I'm interested in harder BDs - basically the answer is because they're not for me (normal BDs are fine for a lightweight like me) and it's harder to make sturdy two-half wheels (like freespins) that will take that much weight and work fine than it is to make one-part wheels (like megavertz) Smile

you may be shit out of luck then... Any hard compound can be rubbed off if applied, and the wheel compound doesn't change when used (as pointed out by our friend slicer).

The reason I sugessted free spins is because you can make them have a gap (vary the width of the wheel). The only difference would be the wheels move independently.

But I can see where you would have issues keeping the gap between the wheels, so my proposal to your dilema:

Give him cake!

Yeah, give him a pair of BD's and give him a pair of custom MV. He won't wreck out the mega wheel which he can use on a skatepark surface. When he is skating street he can use the BD's. So you lose a little on the speed but you're not trying to be a top performer when skating casually, so thats when efficiency would outweigh performance.

You don't need to drive a Funny Car to get to the McDonalds across the street...

Joined: 15 Jun 2008 Posts: 1391 Location: UK

Yeah, I'll figure something out. Thanks for all the input tho guys Smile