How do you inventory and store tires?

[slothead]

I have 2 routed tracks, an oval and a road course, and about 100 cars for each. Cars on the oval are converted to silicone rear tires while the road course cars all get urethane rear tires. When I purchase silicone or urethane tires I order extra pairs so if I acquire another car of the same type later on I have tires for it. BUT, I've never come up with a way to inventory or store tires and have no idea what I already have or where they are.

Yesterday I created a spreadsheet for inventorying tires. If I keep it updated it will tell me how many pairs of each type and size tires I have. That will mean incrementing counts as new tires are acquired and subtracting tires from inventory as they are used. Now I also have to come up with a way to store them so I can easily find what I'm after when needed.

Suggestions?

[Brad_T]

I've been keeping track on a spreadsheet for a few years as well. I have been storing the tires in double sided small parts organizers. You could go with a bench top type as well if you have the space.

[chrisguyw]

Tire tubes are available (great for taking a few sets to the track), or Plano tackle boxes work well..............I guess you will still need a master list somewhere !!

Cheers
Chris Walker

[Fathead59]

chrisguyw , I was thinking about doing the same thing you got going on

[HomeRacingWorld]

Use drawers for the PG tires and smaller tool boxes for the Quick Slicks.





I use Avery to make labels HERE

I don't use any spreadsheets. I deal enough with those in "real life"

[slothead]

Right now all of my tires are still in the little plastic bags they came in. Since most tires don't have anything on them for identification I've been reluctant to remove them for fear they'd get mixed and I'd no longer know what they are. As far as I know only MaxxTrac tires have lettering on them to designate the part number.

[lance]

how do you know which type of tire is on a car after it is installed?
we have marked our tires by adding an paint dot on the sidewall. yellow dot for yellow dog, red dot for nsr, silver dot for paul gage.

[macmoose]

I use a similar system. The outside face of the rim is colored green, yellow, or blue for PG, TS, or NSR tires. The inboard face of the wheel corresponds to the rim mfr. NSR wheels are w/o a color. TS rims are orange, Slot.it red. I store all of them in compartmented boxes by diameter and width. When something works well on a particular car/track I note that on a spreadsheet.

[Brad_T]

how do you know which type of tire is on a car after it is installed?
we have marked our tires by adding an paint dot on the sidewall. yellow dot for yellow dog, red dot for nsr, silver dot for paul gage.

I have a small piece of tape on the bottom of the chassis with letters and/or numbers. I may also have a piece of tape with the gear ratio as well.

[Fathead59]

I was thinking about doing the same thing Harry , but I do not have nearly as many tires as you do

[slothead]

Harry's system is ideal. I have an organizer from Home Depot with 28 bins, but most are small and I need more the size of those Harry has. Bin labels like those shown are ideal too. Those are 2 things I'll look for.

However, as a data nerd I'll still want a spreadsheet to check and for inventory. A few years ago I would have written a program to create and maintain a tire databases, but while I still create and use spreadsheets on a daily basis for hobby and sports stuff, I don't program all the time anymore.

[Area 51 Raceway NC]

I look at it what groceries I need in my kitchen. I know where everything is and if it gets low you put it on the to buy list. I try to keep it simple and organized so you know where everything it is all the time. Spreadsheets are for when you have multiple persons involved in grabbing things. My experience is have organized storage drawers and labels to keep track of your inventory. Good luck to what you come up with.

[Quick Slicks]

For anyone who might want to store their Quick Slicks in tire tubes, here is a link to a set of pre-designed labels.

Quick Slicks Tire Tube Labels

These labels are designed to be printed on Avery 5160 (or equivalent) address labels (1" x 2-5/8" x 30 labels per sheet)

[slothead]

Thank you. I downloaded the labels and saved them in the same folder as my inventory.

[Aptosc6]

I am totally old school on tire inventory.

[Wobble]

Instead of a bag I use a 2litre ice-cream container ..... plus I had the enjoyment of eating the ice-cream.

[slothead]

Another rationale for using a spreadsheet is to keep track of what tires are put on cars. Every time a pair of tires is taken out of inventory I'll record the car they are placed on. I already record this info in my slot car log in which I make daily entries about what's going on, but that now fills up 2 spiral notebooks plus well over 200 pages of multiple Word documents which aren't easy to search.