daddybland

Anyone know of any cork grips in road bar size(23.8) or can you mod the 22.2 ones to fit? I have Belleville bars from VO on my 3speed path racer and want to use cork for a classier look.

Also can you paint/stain cork before laquering?

Thanks

Grand Bois

All of mine are stained and shellaced to match my Brooks saddles. I can't answer your othe question.

helicomatic

I think you might be able to it with a lot of patience, and maybe a few sets of grips. The grips are made in the same way as an agglomerate wine cork, smaller pieces of cork are glued and pressed together. Because of this, they are pretty fragile once you start to cut into them. We used to modify cork grips to fit bar end shifters on Nitto Albatross bars (these are thin enough to be 22.2 outer diameter but at about 20mm I.D. a bar-end still fits inside.) By cutting a hole in the end, and filing a small slot on the underside, the housing cleared the grip enough to be usable. It was generally a 2:1 success to failure rate, because the grips tended to split apart when modified. Now for the most part we just use Paul Thumbies if the customer wants cork grips, less labor intensive, less waste.

Maybe someone can come up with a way to increase the diameter without causing the grip to fall apart.

helicomatic

Of course, right after I posted that I went and tried to just slide cork grips onto a road bar...

On a Nitto drop bar, they went on with some pretty serious resistance until the bar started to curve, then the end split. Serious resistance meaning bare bars pushed down into a grip resting on the bench, with me holding the grip in my other hand as some deterrent to splitting. Putting a second one on without drilling a hole to let the air out might be impossible.

I've got one soaking in water that I'll try tomorrow morning and see what it does.

daddybland

Thanks alot for the help guys. Kevin, you are going above and beyond. I never thiught of souking them, I was goung to stick some 220 grit to a dowel rod and sand the inside but an overnight bath sounds much easier. Hope it works!!!!!! Thanks again. The frame is off at powdercoat now, I'll post some pics when its back together(or if you are at NAHBS, you can see it in person.)