Diamond Back Classic Custom Tyres
Why Diamond Back?
For years, Diamond Back Classics has been the producer of custom wide white wall, redline, blueline and goldline tyres. Utilizing the latest and highest quality manufacturing process, Diamond Back Classics provides you with all of the advantages of modern day safety, handling and ride quality of a radial tyre with the look of yesteryear. Whether it is Michelin, Toyo, Nitto, Federal or a Cooper tyre, Diamond Back Classics vulcanizes custom sidewall treatments to any modern day radial tyre in our plant located in South Carolina.
At Diamond Back Classics, we understand that the right car with the wrong tyre can be a catastrophe! Our job is to not let that happen. We know the frustration. Your car is behind schedule, over budget, you can’t find parts and your spouse just doesn’t understand. But eventually, it all comes together and it is time for that first ride. All of the time and money you have invested is useless if the tyres are wrong. Your car must not only look good but it must perform, ride and handle well too.
Here, we are different. We don’t use outdated moulds and no name manufacturers. We use only tyres made by major manufacturers. All modern technology is available to you and you still get that nostalgic look you want. Warning! When shopping for tyres, always find out who the original manufacturer is. What you see is not always what you get.
Our quality control department ensures that only the highest quality products leave our facility. Problems with balancing, traction, irregular wear patterns, excessive weight and noise levels are virtually nonexistent. We know and understand that valuable assets ride on our products….your many hours of sweat and tears, busted knuckles and thousands of pounds, and now you are ready for the road. Why settle for second best and second rate products when you can buy Diamond Back Classics? You get more choices, better quality and lower prices!
The Tyre Making Process.
Interested in our tyre making process? Great! There are really two ways to make a white wall radial tyre. You can do it while you’re actually making the tyre or you can add the white wall to a finished tyre as a final step. Remember, white rubber is just ornamental and has nothing to do with strength or performance. The advantage to adding it after the tyre is made is that you can put a whitewall or colour stripe on any tyre you want, including 17", 18" and 20" tyres — and with much tighter quality control. The versatility is endless and tyres are all current production. This is how we do it at Diamond Back. We’re simply the "final step".
We start by mounting the new tyre on a special machine that spins it at high speed. Using our own attachments, we rough up the sidewall surface so it is no longer perfectly smooth. Because of the accuracy of our preparatory machine, and because it turns at such a high RPM, any abnormalities of the tyre can be spotted immediately. Because we use major manufacturers our rejection rate is near zero.
An entire section of our plant is devoted to the vulcanization equipment that makes the white wall a permanent part of the tyre. Because the vulcanization process is so effective, if you tried to separate the white wall from the tyre afterward, the tyre itself would become damaged. It’s a marriage that lasts forever…a very permanent bond. So if you forget everything else, just remember that once the white wall is vulcanized to the tyre, it’s on there forever (just try pulling one off the tyre sometime.)
After vulcanization, the material has to be trimmed to the exact desired width, depending on what you order. Whether it be a 3 ¾" white wall for a ’58 Cadillac, or a 3/8" redline for a ’65 Corvette it makes no difference. The fronts and rears can be matched in white wall width even if your tyres are different sizes (as with hot rod big & little combinations.) That’s the nice part about trimming each white wall or redline to order. We can also ensure that whitewalls widths are proportionately correct front and rear. For example – a smaller front tyre will have the same percentage of white wall on the sidewall as a larger rear tyre, and even though the front and rear whitewalls will be of different widths, they remain proportionately correct and aesthetically pleasing to all admirers of your ride!
All of our finishers are equipped with laser guides so that all widths are held to close tolerances. Once the trimming is complete, a series of finishing steps in the final process makes them nice and smooth.
Another advantage to high speed finishing is that it immediately shows us if there’s any kind of problem with the tyre’s trueness (runout). The operator can spot it right away and he simply rejects the tyre. It seldom happens.