HerrSchultze

Hi, is there a way to deal white cloth tape as you would with shellac. However, mantaining the brilliancy of the white?

shelbyfv

There is a product sold to seal jigsaw puzzles. "Save-A-Puzzle" is one brand. Walmart or a craft store. You'd need to try it on a sample, of course.

_ForceD_

If you're going to shellac your nice cloth tape, which will still get dirty and need to be cleaned, why not just get a nice vinyl/foam tape that can probably be cleaned easier? Shellacking the cloth tape is sorta like having a nice leather saddle and putting a seat cover on it.

Dan

shelbyfv

Shellac on cloth tape is how they roll at Rivendell. It's a style thing. However, I don't think they like stuff too new and shiny, maybe discolored white would be more correct.

venturi95

put the white tape on first thing in the morning, before your hands get dirty. then enjoy the rich patina as it ages.

HTupolev

Cotton cloth tape isn't "nice", it's some of the cheapest and most basic stuff out there. It doesn't make the cloth tape harder to clean... quite the opposite, since it eliminates much of the cloth's porosity.


As for why to do it?


Before:



After:

jpescatore

Not sure if the white bar tape I use is considered "cloth" but I just spray it with Scotchguard and it stays clean longer. Not forever, but longer and seems easier to clean when they do get dirty - my wife gave me these "magic sponges" that do a pretty good job from there.

Trakhak

I wrap bars with white tape and then with a top layer of nonadhesive clear tape.

Wildwood 

+1. Cloth tape is cheap. The 'feel' of shellac on cloth does not suit me.

Maybe a pair of new gloves for that new handlebar tape. Newbaum's is a bit longer than Tressostar, if you ride wide bars.


edit: The only way to maintain white cloth's "brilliance" is to wrap the bars nicely, then hang the bike somewhere in your house.

WizardOfBoz

After dozens of handlebars with cloth over the years, I've given up on the stuff. There are so many superior tapes now - we aren't limited to cloth.

To keep cloth clean for more than an hour or so, when riding out-doors, possibly in the rain and mud? To keep WHITE CLOTH clean for days or weeks, on a bike that is actually being used? C'mon, man.

If you want brilliant white cloth tape, I suppose you could do what Eddy Merckx would have done. Re-wrap (or in Eddie's case, have it re-wrapped) after every ride. Merckx was cool that way: he respected the sport and the other competitors and the fans so much that he was fastidious about all his gear.

Applying shellac or rubber any other polymerizing finish changes the stuff from cloth tape to cotton-reinforced vinyl (or whatever).

I go for functional. Black synthetic cork or Lizard Skin.

Wildwood 

If you are going to wrap regularly (or in my case = a large # of bikes) your local sewing materials store will have huge rolls of cloth tape. JoAnn's?

My question is: Why do you want your white tape to stay brilliant?


edit: this thread prompted me to go check my handlebar colors. No white cloth. Yellow, pale grey, medium grey, brown, barely blue. A couple have a white cloth under-layer. The only white are 2 with a cork-like wrap.