I'm in DC and deliver food around the area where the World Bank and IMF buildings are, the place was covered in police tape after the protests this past week and one of my buddies at work decided it would be funny to tie up my bike in police tape. Which gave me a great idea! I want to coat my frame in police tape, then clearcoat it, kind of like one of those tables that have stuff on them which is then frozen in clear resin. Is this possible? I was thinking a strip with aircraft paint, then a coat or two of primer, then glue the police tape down (not sure with what?), then coat it all with some sort of glossy clearcoat. But, I don't know anything about painting frames so I have no idea if this would work. My frame is aluminum if that makes any difference. Ideas?

i dont know if this will work out the way you want it to if you tried it. the clear coat has nothing to bond with besides the glossy caution tape. i think you are better off getting a custom paint job if you really want to get the caution tape effect. however its probably gonna cost you your virginity and a ****load of money.

yea, good call, I wasn't really thinking about what the clearcoat could bind to... I don't want to pay anyone for it, but I really like the idea... I think I'll try digging around on the net for info about resins...

Anything you do short of a custom paint job is going to be pretty fragile. With that in mind, why not just spray one side of the police tape with adhesive ad stick it directly to the frame? Quick and easy.

Any resin you find that is strong enough to maintain its shape/integrity only supported by thin plastic tape is probably going to be so thick and heavy that you'll hate it. I don't even know if something that would work for a bike frame is available - the stuff for bar tops is a pour-on-a-flat-surface deal.

You can do it...

You will have to most likely have to start with a thin layer of clear epoxy on your frame (painted on) then put the police tape over it. Next you would have to put the clear coat over it, and while it is still wet, put another layer of police tape on it... ala papier maché. then after you have your final police tape "pasted" on just put several coats of clear on it. This might not work if you are using spray paint clear coat.

Good luck and post pictures.

Your best bet is to goto a frame painter and bring the supplies (police tape and your clear coat) describe what you want done and then pay them about 100$ which is probably what it will cost.

i say try it. if you can pull it off it will definetly be sweet. but be aware that it might start to peel off rather quickly.

start cheap. use spray adhesive and then wide, 3inch packaging tape. do you want the tape wrapping around the bar, candy-cane style, or running parallel so the letters do the wrapping?

either way i would stagger a roll of police tape and packaging tape, and then go crazy.

This sounds encouraging, but why the paper-mache style double layers? What about doing a layer of clearcoat, sticking the tape to this layer while it is still wet and then slathering on another layer on top in hopes that the tape becomes sort of encased in a single chunk of clearcoat? how long does cleacoat take to dry? This is my first attempt at painting a frame, but I definately can't afford to have it done for me.

Oh, wow! It's $20 for a huge roll that I don't need, but these guys sell reflective police line tape! That would be sweet. https://www.evidentcrimescene.com/cata/photo/photo.html

good luck getting anything to stick to poly, which that police tape is made out of.
I work with poly in a similar application to police tape daily, and I don't think you would get anything to stick to it.

Just wrap the frame in the police tape and then wrap it in clear packaging tape, that would be the only thing i can think of.

I don't know what i was thinking about ht paper-mache thing, but most likely to build a foundation on itself. because it's tought to have one layer of that police tape laid down and kept in place as it tends to shift a lot and its hard to handle. Any large format decal / vinyl / plastic you put on your frame will have about the same difficulty.i think where i was going with the paper mache idea was also to make your bike look like ith was the crime scene...

get some custom vinyl stickers printed and just use those all over your frame.

a police tape theme sounds ugly as ****, but whatever.

if it was me, I'd PAINT IT to look like the police tape,...it's just yellow with black block letters

you could even get some computer cut masking so the lettering would look correct.

but don't try and decoupage' with that caution tape because as everyone said, with only the polyethylene tape to stick to(if it even WILL stick to the polyethylene?), and the soft rather thick tape below, the clearcoat would be VERY easily damaged, or if you managed to get the coating thick enough to withstand the abuse, it would end up adding a bunch of weight.

any decent airbrush artist, with a couple of straight edge stencils, and some lettering masks could easily reproduce that, thats the way I'd go about it.

stencil it on, like base colour bright yellow, then stencil on the text/lines with black. shouldnt be too hard, just make sure the stencle doesnt move inbetween coats. then clear coat it?



just an idea

Hah, better late than never, aye?

^^ Aye!

the weight weenie guy isn't going to condone this

Wow, I'm amazed this thread came alive again. I'm not in the US at the moment, and haven't seen my bike in months, but when I get back it'll be a project. I like the stencil idea a lot, it seems nice and simple and chemical free, I think I'll try that first. Thanks guys.