Patent ID: 7276198

Claim:
A method of making a tire, comprising: forming a tire tread with a first molding member, the tread having a plurality of circumferential grooves and a plurality of lateral grooves, the circumferential and lateral grooves extending to a least one groove bottom surface and defining a plurality of tread blocks; forming at least one tie bar between at least two of the tread blocks with a second molding member that is separable from the first molding member, the tie bar extending across at least one of the circumferential grooves and spaced from the at least one groove bottom surface; moving the first molding member in a direction radially outwardly so as to remove the first molding member from the formed tread of the tire; and moving the second molding member along the length of the at least one of the circumferential grooves and removing the second molding member from the formed tread of the tire after the first molding member has moved radially outwardly.