Martin,
I've had very good luck getting cloth tape off of Ebay in various colors (red, brown, white, blue, black, tan, even purple) at about $5.00 for two rolls. One seller seems to have an overstock of the stuff and has the fastest shipping I've ever seen. While I believe you can shellac cork tape, I don't think it'll give you the same look or feel as cloth. With cloth, you can vary both the tint of the tape as well as the texture depending on the number of coats. Shellac can be bought or scratch mixed in varying degrees of amber, so with enough coats, you can approximate the tint of a honey Brooks saddle. Cork doesn't absorb as well as cloth, so I'm not sure it'll give you the same effect and I kind of like the feel of tightly wrapped, shellaced cloth bar tape. If you do shellac, use several thin coats as opposed to a few heavy coats. The shellac can be thinned out with alcohol and if you store your brush in an airtight jar (I used ziplock bags), it won't get hard.
Fred Durrette
Summerville, SC
>
> From: "Martin Appel" <martin@camelot.de>
> Date: 2005/11/10 Thu AM 05:56:31 EST
> To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
> Subject: [CR]shellac a "cork" handlebar tape?
>
> shellacing a cloth handlebar tape is a nice way to give your bike a
> classic look.
>
> Sad thing is that cloth handlebar tape in colors other than black seems
> to have vanished rom the market; Rivendell is out of stock...
>
> so i thought of alternatives.
> Cinelli sells a modern "cork" padded handlebar tape in color "nature"
> (see http://www.bike24.net/
> just a little bit to light in color to match with a Broks saddle.
>
> i wonder i it might be possible to put shellac on one o those tapes?
> anybody ever tried it?
>
> thanks or any hints,
>
> Martin Appel
> Munich, Germany