Knobby All Terrain Rubber Wallet With Optional Smack-lights

One of my neighbors put a pile of mtb tires out on the street for garbage pick up. Naturally, my hunter-gatherer instincts took over and I dragged them all back to my lair to gloat over. It's possible that I have too many old bikes (nevah!). May as well have too many tires as well. Especially nice ones. And I truly dig the tread patterns and want to make everything out of them. I was working on a wallet design, and then the contest came up and gave me the kick I needed to make it into an instructable.

yeah, so anyway...
MTB Tires are cool. And this knobby thing lights up when you drop it. If you're like me, you always have a few extra tires around that you can't possibly throw away, because well, they're so cool. Now you can have a wallet that is as cool as a knobby mountain bike tire. And if you go for the optional drop sensor... If you drop your wallet, the lights fire off like, um i dunno what. some tiny french polizei car inside your wallet your something. You or a person with you is bound to notice and see where your cool wallet went, and if you're in a crowded nightclub or whatever, it lights up every time someone kicks it or steps on it.
Interestingly, the lights also go off if you smack your friend's head with it. You can't beat that for entertainment.

video of the cr-azeee lights:
http://www.youtube.com/v/0MxrhrgJ07o

Step 1: Materials

Old MTB tire.
MTB (large) Inner tube.
Scissors.
Pop-rivets and riveter. Or substitute your favorite fastener method.
Something sharp to puncture with.
A hole punch. Or do without it.

Step 2: Cutting Stuff! Attack That Tire, Baby.

To start, cut about ten inches from the tire. you can trim it to the size you want later. If you want it to look flashy and logo-fied inside the wallet., you can use the section with the tire maker's logo on it. I wanted mine to be basic black. So I chose the part of the sidewall that has the tire ratings molded into it, cause I thought that would look bitchin inside my wallet.
if your tire is a foldable type like mine, the bead is a soft material you can cut with scissors. If it's the more common regular type of tire, the bead has metal wire in it, and you'll need to use wire cutters.

cut off the tire beads, as in the photo. cut them as close to the edge as possible, since you need all of the sidewall to make the inside of the wallet.


Inner tube card holder:
Guess what? it turns out a fat tire inner tube is just the right size to fit a credit card inside of it!! I thought this was a pretty cool discovery. If you have multiple cards stacked inside one innner tube piece, its pretty easy to slide them in and out of it, yet the fit is snug enough that they absolutely won't fall out on their own.

I like the idea of using an inner tube for the inner part of a tire wallet. It's like you just cut a hunk out of your wheel and said 'heh, dat's my wallet!'

So, also cut out about the same length of inner tube. I trimmed mine further by folding it in half and cutting a semi circle or a v shape (last pic). this allows the card to fit inside but still have an opening so you can see the cards and easily get your fingers in there to grab 'em. If you want a stealthier look, you can keep them intact so the cards hide completely inside. I like that look too. But i recommend cutting at least one end so you can push the cards out (more about this to come, with pics, in a later step)--and that end will be hidden anyway in the finished wallet if you do it the way I do.

Step 3: Mtb Tire Origami

fold up the tire so the sidewalls are inside. This is your chance to figure out the sizing. so put a card in there, think about how big you want the wallet to be, play with it, look at it from all angles, etc.
cut out a couple of pieces at the middle where the wallet will fold, as in the photo.


The strap:
You can make a strap to hold the wallet closed with another strip of inner tube. I cut off a circle of tube, then cut it so it's just a long piece rather than a ring. I cut into the end of the wallet as in the photo to make a place to put this strap. For the next one, instead of cutting directly from the end, I'll make a 'plunge cut', by stabbing thru instead of cutting from the end, so that there's just a slit for the strap to fit thru, rather than a cut that goes all the way to the end.

The ends:
the pieces cut out of the sidewalls, from the first photo on this step, are now the little end covers. see the photo to get what I mean.

Assembly:
Don't worry, you'll see more pics of the assembled parts in the next step.
Put in the card sleeves, the end covers, and the strap all together and do more checking and fitting and such. get it all lined up. pin it in place with a tack, needle, or whatever. put the tack thru where you will put the rivets that hold the whole thing together.


Next you're gonna use the hole punch if ya got one, to make the holes bigger where the tacks are, and then start riveting. yay!

Step 4: Line 'Em Up! Punch 'Em Out! Rivet 'Em Up!

As promised, now you're going to line up everthing and, if you have a hole punch, put it on a hole sized for your rivets (on my punch, this is the smallest hole) and punch away. If you don't have a punch, i found a drill really works pretty decently for making the holes in the tire.

Next it's just a matter of lining everything up like a big rubber all terrain sandwich and riveting it together.
check out the pics for detail shots on all this. Note that I put a card in the sleeve during this step. This keeps the sleeve in shape and easy to position the way you want it.

Step 5: Done!!

Here are some shots of one of the finished products.

most of the wallet operation is fairly standard: money and other stuff tucks in behind the sleeves.
a cool feature is the design of the card sleeves. You can lift the little triangular sidewall flap at the end, and use your fingertip to nudge the cards out.

the strap keeps it all together. i'm sure there are many possibilities for other types of closures.
Aaaand, there are many possibilities for MTB tire wallet designs, because some of the different kinds of tires will probably fold up a bit differently, so there is probably a lot of room for exploring other designs here.

Also, I added some splits along the spine of this one to make it more flexible, and I like the look better as well. makes it look more articulated. in the photo there is just one split, made with a serrated knife, but i have since added more, and it looks better, in addition to flexing well.

Step 6: But Wait, There's More... Smacklights!!

Ever seen those kids' shoes with the little LED lights that light up each time the little nipper takes a step? Ever notice how kids outgrow their shoes all the time? Ever wonder what you could do with those little lights if they were liberated from the shoe? No?!? Well I did. But i don't have the pics yet of the liberation process. It should suffice to say, the lights are inside the shoe. You are outside the shoe. But YOU have TOOLS. Yay! So attack those little shoes...don't think about the eyeless child-eating monster from Pan's Labyrinth. Or do. It might help your sense of frantic urgency. or monsterlike superhuman strength. attack! remove electronic guts!

When you do, you will have yourself something like that in the photo. A sealed plastic unit, with some nice, flat LEDs sticking out of it, that light up every time you whack, smack, or drop the thing. cool huh?

So put this little piece of ex-viscerated shoe guts inside the wallet, tucked behind one of the card sleeves. the LEDs are flat, so they fit nicely if you jam them all the way to the end, where they stick out on either side of the rivets. Yeah, it adds to the thickness a wee bit, but hey, the price of cool, man.

So when you're getting down and funky in the club and drop yer wallet in the dark, a series of flashing lights will show you exactly where it hits. Also fun for just projecting flashing lights when you smack it against stuff, or people.
video of the smacklights:
http://www.youtube.com/v/0MxrhrgJ07o