Tires: Tire Equipment Question, check tires, timesaving tool

Question
QUESTION: I am on a quest and thought that maybe you could help.  I own several new and used retail tire shops.  For years I have gotten my used tires from a wholesaler.  My business has now grown to the point that I would like to be able to supply myself and cut out the middle man.  To do this, I am looking for a piece of equipment that I once saw in operation.  I have been unable to find it anywhere.  I was hoping maybe you or someone on your staff could identify the equipment’s name and manufacturer.  

The piece of equipment in question is a device used to quickly air check tires without  having to mount them on a rim.  It looks a bit like a lathe.  It consists of two machined metal cones, one is fixed and the other is connected to an air actuator to allow linear motion.   The tire is placed between the cones and the actuator then squeezes the tire between the two cones and airs it up using an air outlet machined into one of the cones.  This equipment is much faster than individually rim-mounting  each tire and would be a huge timesaving tool for my business.  Do you are any of your colleagues know the name of this piece of machinery?

I would be most grateful for any leads as to where I might find such a machine.  

Eagerly awaiting your insight,

K.J.


ANSWER: Kevin,

Sorry, but I've only seen machines do what you describe as part of a process to do something else that required the tire to be inflated.  Needless to say, these machines would be much more expensive than a machine just dedicated to detecting air leakage.



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I think you are talking about something like a tire uniformity machine, correct?  This is the only machine that I could find as well online that did this.  The process seems to be called "quick-chucking" or "auto-chucking" or something similar.  

I know that this machine exists, I have seen it.  I believe it was made by an Italian manufacturer.  I appreciate your quick answer.  Would you possible know of any other sources where I might find this information?  I have found a .pdf of a similar machine on a patent website.  If you would provide me with an email address, I could send you a schematic that might give you a better idea of what I am talking about.   Thanks again for your help.

Answer
Kevin,

A uniformity machine does what I described, but that is not the only machine that inflates a tire and then performs some other task.

No need to send a pdf, I undertsand completely what you are talking about.  I used to use one, but it was specially built about 30 years ago by the machine shop for the company I worked for.  The purpose was to manually check for bulges and indentations.  That is now done by an inline machine with a laser / computer system to judge the bulge / indentation.  Extremely effective and reliable.  Needless to say, that was one of the other machines I mentioned.

Good luck on your search.