Does anyone know of shops that still do tire shaving? And if they can handle as small as 4.80x8? These weight about 10 lbs mounted. Given that these tires are going to collectively carry about 500 lbs for about a quarter of a mile, any idea how much weight could be saved by shaving most of the tread off the tires?
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If SCCA still runs Showroom Stock races, there have to be shops that will shave tread. Think racing-related when you’re googling…
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Ultralight aviation? What are you up to? 
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Red Bull soapbox derby cars have a 176 lb weight limit. This tire seems like a good option for our theme, but hate throwing 40 lbs into just the tires.
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You can get a hot knife and do it yourself. A friend of mine did this with his tires.
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Comedy option: Burn outs in the back parking lot?
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I don’t know of any shops that do this, however the dirt track guys do this for every race. Mount the tire in something off the rim, then go after it with an angle grinder. Prep 30 degrees of tire and rotate.
Please note, this is obscenely messy. Wear PPE in a place you don’t mind bits of shaved tire everywhere.
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I’ve never had it done, but supposedly it’s a thing, now, for AWD vehicle owners to get done to match diameters. Enough so that Tire Rack offers it for that purpose
https://blog.tirerack.com/blog/motorsport-messages-from-marshall/tire-shaving-available-at-tire-rack-v2
So maybe it’s not such a “hard to come by” commodity as one might think…
Videos when you do, please.
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Check with the racing shops down by Cresson, TX, at Motorsports Ranch
Kick scooter tires won’t do?
I’m not actually sure that the road that this is being done on is quite good enough for scooter wheels. 
But while some teams have fairly broad choices in how to impliment their vision, we are going for a scale model of an existing vehicle. So size and appearance are both of interest.
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