This morning I peeled off my shellacked bar tape. I need to change stems, which means a re-do of the job I did last summer. I was very worried about how difficult it would be to get the bars clean but it really was a non-issue. I used an exacto blade to cut the tape at the end of the bar and was able to unwind it relatively easily. The whole thing felt like snakeskin as it was coming off. There is a very little bit of shellac residue up around where I had twine on the bar, but I'm certain that will come off easily with a dab of Goo-be-gone or something similar.

I'll have ample time to set up this bar/stem combo so the real question is: should I look into polishing up the stem before reassembly? I've never done that before but really liked the results that some of the other guys in this forum have had.