Making tread Belts

Building the bubble headed booby

Making tread Belts

Ok, I decided to make my own tread belts using my router table. I used a 1/4 inch bit and sank it 1/4 into the rubber. I'm using the neoprene rubber 2"x1/2"x36" from Mcmaster Carr.

Heres my set up for notching the tread belts. I lay a piece of wood that is 2" wide over the rubber to keep it flat then I clamp it all to my router guide. Spread some baby powder on the under side of the rubber as well as on the table so the rubber moves smoothly when you pull it. I make 3 passes all together one towards me one away and one back. Guide the rubber nice and easy and you'll get a clean groove.

OK, Heres a cool trick. I got tired of marking the rubber every inch than leaving a 1/4 mark so I know where to line up the blade so I figured out this little time saver. After you get done with a cut leave the rubber clamped and mark it where it crosses the right hand side of the table. attach a piece of masking tape 11/4 inch in on the table. Release the clamp holding the rubber to the guide and gently slide the rubber to the left so the mark on the rubber lines up with the 11/4 mark on the table. Clamp her up and your ready for your next cut one inch from the last one!

After grooving the rubber that will become the one inch tread I cut a long piece of MDF an inch wide so I could use it to keep the rubber flush against the table saw table. Then I taped it to the two inch tread shown here. Guide it slowly through your table saw and you'll get two one inch treads.

Heres another shot of my table. Clamp a piece of wood about 8 inches away from the blade to catch all of the rubber shavings.

Oh yeah, new treads. You'll need to hit the edges of each groove with sand paper to clean them up and then run them through a table saw to get them down to 2 inches. The Mcmaster Carr rubber is around 2 1/8 wide.

P.S clean them with Windex and then Armor all them and they'll look sweet.

BINGO! One inch treads.

Rather than deal with matching up the tread ends to epoxy them on the second joint I decided to make a clamp using 2" wide by 1/8 aluminum plate. Drill through them into the rubber and fasten with bolts, When I'm done the plate will be on the top of the tread hidden side the tread box. In this photo I had just drilled to get the holes set up.