I am planning some projects for this winter. Yes they are predicting some snow in Cleveland next week, Yuck. I want to wrap my bars with cloth tape and twine on the ends but have no idea where to start as far as the twine wrap goes. Any help would be appreciated.

Tim

You can pull out an old boy scout handbook for directions and just frap the whole thing and coat it with shellac when you're done. Sounds pretty cool to me.

Actually, I have no idea of how far back to start, but I think you want to at least make sure it covers the last turn of the tape.

contact Rivendell. They may have an old copy of the Rivendell Reader that covers the process.

I must have led a sheltered childhood. Twine is for wrapping hay bales. Is there a picture somewhere on the web showing the result? I just can't picture this...

OK; so here's a picture

...and a pretty good "how to..."
https://fellini.net/twine/

geez. I thought, why? then I looked at your picture, then I looked at some others on the web...I think I gotta try it...but gorilla glue, not shellac, not elmers, there are too many temperature and moisture variables...maybe polyurethane or something...just think of all of those little happy beetles dying so that the string on my handlebars won't unravel...the karmic debt...

I remember my gramps using home-made bamboo fishing rods that had cloth tape and twine grips... all shellaced. They looked cool & functioned pretty well... They were my first ocean fishing rods.

Forget the twine, how'd the tape get that "wrapped both directions" look?

From the rivendell Catalog:

This is the hardest but best way to dress up a fine wrap of cloth tape. Start at the edge of the sleeve, cover about 3/4-inch of tape with twine wraps, and when you’ve 4 wraps from stopping, take another short piece, make a loop of it, lay it down and do the final 4 wraps over it. Then take the loose end of the wrapping twine, stick it in the loop, and pull it back under the last four wraps. Leave it raw, or coat it with Elmer’s. One ball of twine will do seventy or eighty bars, and even if you never get that far, it’s always good to have a ball of twine around, right?

https://www.rivbike.com/webalog/handl...ape/16086.html

'Twas 2 layers of tape. I wanted the grip surface to be a bit thicker.

And Velox plugs, none of that cheap plasticy chrome that
comes in the box with your Chinelli Jelly and cork wrap. . .

marty

O.K. here is the Boy Scout answer: When I was a scout we were taught a way to stop hemp rope from unfraying called "whipping" that should work just fine. It is similar to the Rivendell approach.

Take twine and make a loop. Lay the loop on the end of the bar with the free ends hanging off the bar end. Now, take the long end and make as many tight wraps as you want over the loop. When you wrap up to the head of the loop or have enough wraps made, which ever comes first, stick the end of the twine in the loop. Now pull the short end of the loop, which you have been wrapping over. This draws the loop head and the end you were wrapping snug to the wraps. Now trim the ends and shellac.

Hmm, maybe you know something I don't know. I always thought that shellac was made from an excretion of the Lac beetle, not the beetles themselves. Its harvested by scraping the gummy substance from the branches of certain trees, so its a sustainable resource without too much karmic debt. Polyurethane on the other hand, is petro-chemical so its not as eco-friendly as shellac which is alcohol based.

um, the shell of the lac beetle. Not fatal, you are right. Not even really a beetle. They are a scale insect and they build a shell from body secretions. They discard their shells over and over. and I can't really imagine a happy scale insect, anyway. just an attempt at a little joke...

and, believe it or not, many polyurethanes are reclaimable and recyclable (although most likely not the material that I would place on my handlebar twine). Recycling helps to balance the environmental cost of the material.

But mostly, they don't get trashed at most temperatures that a bicycle would be exposed to, while shellac can melt and get gooey while in your trunk on a hot day.