People who say you can’t be a successful passenger tire retreader in today’s competitive market forgot to tell Gerald Holmes of Eastern Tire Services in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. He’s been successful at it for over 40 years.

At age 16, Gerald worked with uncle, Morris Holmes, whom many of you may remember as the inventor of the Holmes Press. It wasn’t long before Gerald struck out on his own. At the tender age of 17, with a pickup truck and little money in his pocket, he drove to New York City to purchase his first retreading equipment. Sleeping in the truck outside Yankee Stadium made the enterprise more affordable.

That was the beginning of Eastern Tire Service which today produces from 600 to 800 passenger and light truck retreads and over 100 medium truck retreads daily. Eastern also distributes several new tire brands.

Since his first equipment-buying venture, Gerald has continually modernized to keep the most up-to-date equipment in his operation. I visited Eastern’s plant in October and he had just purchased nearly all-new equipment, including a monorail system, for the company’s Bandag truck tire retread plant.

Eastern Tire Service has been a successful new tire dealer and Bandag retreader, but the company is probably best known for its expertise in manufacturing and selling bead-to-bead passenger and light truck retreads. Both new and retreaded tires are delivered to Eastern’s customers with the company’s three tractor-trailer units and five smaller route trucks. Their passenger retreads are exported to various countries including Nicaragua, Cuba, Brazil, Mexico, Iceland, the
U.S. and others.

Gerald is very fortunate to have two sons working the business with him - Brian, who keeps the plant humming, and Allan, who looks after warehousing, shipping and distribution. Gerald’s wife, Margaret, has kept the books for over 40 years and has no intention of relinquishing her position.

Eastern’s high quality passenger and light truck bead-to-bead retreads equal new tires in appearance. The tread patterns are very modern. Approximately 60 percent of the tires are mud and snow and 40 percent are all-season. The most popular all-season design is the 185/70R14 and the most popular mud and snow design is the 235/75R15.

All casings that move through the plant are inspected twice: once visually prior to buffing and again on a Hawkinson NDT after buffing. Most passenger casings are buffed on Eastern,’s two TC100 Italmatic semiautomatic buffers without computerization. The first buffer, bought three years ago, has experienced only three hours of down time. That good fortune led Gerald to purchase a second TC100. Most light truck tires are buffed on the plant’s Italmatic TC54 buffer.

Only simple nail holes in the tread area are repaired on the passenger and light truck casings. After cementing, the sidewall veneer applied by hand requires less than two minutes labor time per tire. In preparation for molding, the tires are then built on an AMF Orbitread.

The passenger and fabric light truck retreads are cured in 32 Italmatic VR Series bladder presses where curing times range from 25 to 30 minutes. Steel cord light truck casings and medium truck casings are processed through the Bandag plant. All tires are finally inspected while still warm from curing, and there is very little cleanup necessary other than trimming the flow vents.

Casing selection for passenger and light truck retreads is critical to the success of this plant and only certain brands and types are accepted for retreading. Close attention to the performance of each retread produced allows the plant to maintain a list of casing brands and types that perform as expected in specific applications.

At the end of my visit, I talked to Gerald about the decline of passenger retreading in North America. He has difficulty understanding this trend because his business keeps getting stronger. Gerald’s theory is that if you want to be successful in the passenger retreading business you must produce a product with the quality and appearance your sales people and dealers want to sell and their customers want to buy. To accomplish this, you must continually train your sales and production personnel as well as purchase and maintain the best equipment and technology available.

This may seem like an ordinary, common sense approach to success in this business. But it is surprising how many companies failed over the years because they didn’t make the common sense decisions or waited until it was too late to do so.

January 1999, The Tire Retreading /Repair Journal

© 1999, Eastern Tire Service Ltd.