New tire black stuff; poison?

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So, my new winter tires arrived today, via UPS from DTD. As a good tire geek should, I cut the ties and peeled off most of the stickers to get a clear view of all the scribbling on the sidewall....and now my hands are jet black.

First for me. Is this some fancy new poison designed to weed out the Darwinian tire geeks from the real thing?
 
Lick some of it off your fingers, and tell what it tastes like... if you make it back to the computer, that is.
 
It's carbon black. That stuff is a PITA to work with. It gets EVERYWHERE! They use it to pigment the tires black.
 
Sometimes I get tires in covered in silica. In guessing it was prob spilled in the factory and somehow the tires traveled through it. It could be carbon black, or even mold releasing agents.
 
Originally Posted By: volk06
It's carbon black. That stuff is a PITA to work with. It gets EVERYWHERE! They use it to pigment the tires black.

I believe that it's black is secondary to its use as a filler.
 
Originally Posted By: y_p_w
Originally Posted By: volk06
It's carbon black. That stuff is a PITA to work with. It gets EVERYWHERE! They use it to pigment the tires black.

I believe that it's black is secondary to its use as a filler.


Dunno, but I'd have thought that it being black was fairly primary to its use as a sunblocker?
 
My understanding of carbon black in tires is that it is both a filler (that is, something cheap to occupy space and this results in a less expensive tire) and structural (something that adds certain properties to the rubber).

What it adds is Wear, and Traction and adversely affects Rolling Resistance.
 
Originally Posted By: CapriRacer
My understanding of carbon black in tires is that it is both a filler (that is, something cheap to occupy space and this results in a less expensive tire) and structural (something that adds certain properties to the rubber).

What it adds is Wear, and Traction and adversely affects Rolling Resistance.


In that case I am bracing to pay more at the pump this winter---even moreso than usual. Hehe. Thanks for the explanation, gentlemen.
 
Originally Posted By: CapriRacer
My understanding of carbon black in tires is that it is both a filler (that is, something cheap to occupy space and this results in a less expensive tire) and structural (something that adds certain properties to the rubber).

What it adds is Wear, and Traction and adversely affects Rolling Resistance.

I looked up what it's supposed to do. I suppose it's a pigment (certainly useful as a component of copier toner), but I'm not even sure why tires need to be that black. I've ridden on all sorts of tires that weren't black. That used to be common with BMX bike tires. I also used to ride on a set of Michelin road bike tires that had this odd green color.

It supposedly reinforces the tread and conducts heat. I suppose the latter is very important to keeping a tire from tearing apart due to high temps.
 
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