I’ve seen a place in america, where you can have your design printed on bar tape, but bar tape colours are limited.

I’ve essentially got rolls of bar tape, brand new that i want to get a logo printed on, bar tape yellow, green logo.

The old bar tape is original and i just want to replicate it?

Am i wanting too much here? I it possible some how to screen print onto a roll?

Any printers out there?

I don’t know of a way to do that. Screen print would be difficult. Screens are usually flat in my experience. Digital print won’t work either, certainly not on a wide format machine. There are some small format digital UV printers about that could do it. Not sure who has them though.

Rubber stamp

cheers something to be going on there

Tape

logo ref

redrawn vector logo

Now i get a stamp made and use a fabric ink pad and see how i get on… 😀

or cut a template and use fabric spray paint?

Would this do?

http://www.derks-wielersport.nl/en/2385/handlebar-tape-bike-ribbon-yellow-cork-with-emblossed-coppi-name.html

wow good find, but it doesn’t look very bright, unless of course that’s the flash?

Thanks, worth a purchase anyway.

Having contacted the dutch store with no reply to my questions, I’ve gone the homemade route…

look what arrived yesterday…

now just awaiting the ink pad.

🙂

ink pad arrives…

time for the dry run on the rear side of a piece of the original bar tape…

now the waiting game,..picture doesn’t do it justice to be honest, it looks pretty darn spot on 😀

i was a little ham-fisted on the first roll (blame it on the oak aged cider), but the other roll is spot on, that ones going car side 😀

I’ve brought some spray plasti-coat clear sealer, which i’m going to test first, to see if that will help with deterioration once in use.

Nice work, where did you get the stamp made?

http://www.speedystamps.co.uk

very easy to upload and size your artwork, not cheap though, worked out about £16 something!

pleased with it though.

Like

and they’ll be plenty of ink left to do a simple chest logo’d t-shirt afterwards too 🙂

…issues with the ink smudging,..applied plasti-coat varnish sealer, double lot, after letting the initial spray dry.

still smudging…

One roll is now in the freezer, read somewhere this helps before applying a sealer.

Could be this sealer isn’t appropriate for this application.

I would have thought you would need a suitable solvent in the ink for it to etch into the rubber.

giving the other strip the hair dryer treatment…

…going out shortly to get some more bar tape just in case this all goes horribly wrong! 😕

You are probably right Andy…

Freezer was no good, essentially the sponge like effect of the cork and whatever it’s made of bar tape, is making it difficult to dry out, let alone stay smudge proof.

I’ve now hair dried both and they only smudge if you rub them.

I’ve sprayed the one liberally with a varnish type spray, and its currently on the washing line drying…

So when it’s dry if it still smudges, I may have to admit defeat 🙁

Maybe the answer lies in riding on the hoods and doing no handed? 😀

It shouldnt be hard to get a solvent based ink. tbh you could even try a black solvent based marker pen and paint it onto the stamp and then stamp.

Another option is find a solvent that softens the bar tape (eg acetone) and carefully wet the surface and then stamp the logo on and allow to dry. This softening of the tape will allow the dye to impregnate the polymer.

…hold on,….might have cracked it

PlastiKote for the Win? Possibly.

Sprayed them both yesterday evening, and allowed to dry, no rubbing, no smudging!

It does render the bar tape stiff, but i’ve just loosened it back by rubbing between thumb and forefinger.

So its ready for wrapping and then of course a few miles, that’s where the real test begins!

New on left, old on right, savior in the middle…

If that works, I’ll be seriously impressed. Top work!

…well, my hamfisted attempt at bar wrapping apart,…its looking pretty darn good.

On reflection, I think i’d have brought a better make of bar tape, as there was basically none left and I could have used a little more length on each piece, so annoyingly there’s a minor bodge had to happen, but in practice no one will know.

The print isn’t smudging.

So i have just got to go ride on it now and see how it goes.

Looks good.

So want to try it yourself?

I used cork tape by Velox (Recommend you use something with enough length).

I used Adobe Illustrator to trace an image to convert the logo to vector.

I had a stamp made http://www.speedystamps.co.uk

I brought a versacraft fabric/wood ink pad from http://www.stickytiger.co.uk
(There may be better ink options for this application, but I spent money on this, so I was gonna make it work).

I brought PlastiKote Clear sealer satin spray from http://www.hobbycraft.co.uk (Other sealers are available for various applications that may do the job just as well).

1. Stamp your bar tape with the stamp, loaded with ink (Take your time, don’t drink cider whilst doing it). Stamp on the lower half of the tape, because of the overlap involved in wrapping.

2. Allow to dry naturally, then when you get fed up of waiting for it to dry, take the hairdryer to it (30 seconds on each logo seemed enough. Test dryness by prodding with finger, if no ink on finger, it’s dry.

3. Hang on the washing line and spray liberally from about 150mm distance with plastikote, do this on a still calm day.

Allow to dry for at least one hour.

You will need to unsoften the tape back into its rounded form, it goes stiff (although the one seemed a lot stiffer than the second one that I did, no idea why?)

Test that the ink doesn’t smudge, it shouldn’t be smudging, it should have sealed it.

4. Wrap bars (I’m sure you’ll do a better job of that than me) Drink a beer in celebration.

Ciao!

Looks good!

So want to try it yourself?

Not sure “Ribble” has the same ring to it 🙂

Top work!

I’ll be fitting some NOS mid 90’s gum, black and green Vittoria tyres to it tomorrow, near as damn it identical to the ones it had originally. (Keeping yellow tires yellow is a grind!)

So, i’ll pop a piccy up in it’s new/old finery tomorrow.

Sorry, but I’ve got to ask, Why?

Sorry, but I’ve got to ask, Why?

…i think this was detailed in my original post.

Sorry, but I’ve got to ask, Why?
…i think this was detailed in my original post.

yeah, but why? if it was a totally original build then I could understand it, but judging by the shifter it’s not, so why take all the time and expense to hand print bar tape?

not having a go BTW, just seems like a lot of hard work!

yeah, but why? if it was a totally original build then I could understand it, but judging by the shifter it’s not, so why take all the time and expense to hand print bar tape?

not having a go BTW, just seems like a lot of hard work!

As far as I’m aware the shimano rsx sti’s and drivetrain is all original to the bike, the front mech is rx100, so not sure if that may have been replaced at some point? It’s a 1994 bike. Of course the cables may have been changed at some point.

It’s a nice ride, It looks good. Those are important to me. I wouldn’t class it as a lot of hardwork.

Now shod with tyres very similar to what it came with originally.

and my Ollie for those who prefer the no nonsense bar tape look! 😉

Ciao

Looks great! To fix in to tissue at work we use and acid alc mix, IMS/water/HcL

Tah,…cool…i know where to bring my drying ink pad then! 🙂

Not my thing, but great job.