Help With Green Handlebar Tape
 

Does anyone have any pictures of Tressostar/Velox green handlebar tape with a couple of coats of shellac, clear or amber. I know they've got some pics up at Rivbike, but I'd really like to see a pic on a bike.

Thanks

This probably comes too late for you, but maybe others would find it useful. I wanted olive handlebar tape for my
newly acquired Motobecane, but could not find any. Colour theory-based logic suggested that covering standard
green tape with amber shellac should produce olive green, so we decided to give that a try; worst case scenario
is that we'd waste a $5 roll of tape. Happily, the experiment worked. Here are the results:


http://queenmargot.com/greenshellac1.jpg

This gives a pretty accurate idea of what the standard green tape looks like. Very Christmasy.


http://queenmargot.com/greenshellac3.jpg

This is what the tape looks like after 1 coat of amber shellac has been freshly applied. The colour immediately
turns a dark deep olive, resembling the traditional colour of oilcloth products. This was the look I was hoping for.
However, note that the shellac is wet at this point and has not yet been absorbed by the tape.


http://queenmargot.com/greenshellac4.jpg

And this is what the colour looks like after 1 coat of shellac has been completely absorbed by the tape and dried.
It is a colour midway between dark forest green and olive green. With additional appications of amber shellac,
the dry colour begins to look like the wet colour in the 2nd photo.

If you're having trouble finding green - or any other color - Tressostar cloth-tape, Ben's Cycle has them:

http://www.benscycle.net/index.php?m...ord=tressostar

WTH.. That middle pix looks someone just number two-d. Pretty gross but a great theft deterrent.

I'm glad somebody else said it first. Yes, a color found in nature . . . and in my backyard.

Hmmm....'theft deterrent' eh? Good idea! Get some very realistic fake feces from a joke-shop. Place on saddle. Perhaps a whoopie-cushion under saddle...?

Hahaha. Oh, you people are rough.

Well, that is what the colour looks like when the shellac is wet. When dry, it looks basically like the colour of classic oilcloth, matching saddle bags like this one from Rivendell

http://www.rivbike.com/images/produc...74/20-131c.jpg

or these panniers from Brooks

http://www.cippsites.com/Merchant4/g...ightRolled.JPG

I am actually somewhat surprised that no one looked at the "final" dried shellac. None of that ugly yellowing and foam that was there before a 24-hour drying period.

This project will need two more complete coats before it looks like military canvas green.

But it's going to look awesome in the end.

I hope that is because you have dogs, not because you can't afford a toilet.

I forgot to mention that the green tape I used (the colour on the 1st photo) was Tressostar. On the website, the colour looks like it leans towards olive, but in person not at all. It is a standard Kelly-green. They also have a teal colour, which is a blue-green.

Do shellacked bars ever get sticky in warm weather?

No. Once it's dry, it's dry.