jsmoriss: I opted for 6 cuts (3 passes of the knife) per center lug. I think this is fairly reasonable for a winter-only tire. If I was running this tire as an all-season, I would probably go with 4 cuts (two passes) instead. Although sipes are excellent for traction on wet surfaces and ice, they can chunk when rock crawling off-road and/or driving long distances on gravel roads. For this same reason, you should not sipe the edge lugs. As I mentioned earlier, you don't want to cut too deep if you're pulling a trailer. The Toyo M-55s are well known for their ability to take deep sipes without chunking, but other tires may not be as resistant. I used a silver marker here to show the pattern I used.