There are member(s) of this list who have first hand knowledge and were trained in the art of preparing wheels using shellac and fabric, (aka "Banda gen" in German) for purposes of Steher track racing, In brief, Steher racing involves some form of motorcycle with a roller apparatus at the rear, and ag ainst this roller rests the front wheel of the cyclist. My comments here are addressed only to Steher racing and not to any other uses of shellac.
I have a proximate reason for bringing up the subject: I would like to locat e a supply of, or a source for, the fabric or "Bandagen" that are used for thi s purpose, on behalf of an acquaintance in Europe who is an active Steher race r on the circuit there. Yes, Steher racing is still being practiced in Europe.
Old supplies of the fabric are disappearing.and to the best of his knowledge
it is no longer being manufactured. It is a cross-woven flax fabric (not canvas). Any help in locating old supplies or current manufacturers would be appreciated. I think I recall that Conti may have been the last manufactu rer or supplier of the fabric. Given the stresses on the tires of Steher riders, the speeds and the risks involved, experimentation with possible alternative fabrics is not especially desireable!
It is worth noting that in the German language, a track rider could be referred to as being either a "Flieger" or a "Steher," which very crudely translate to "Flyer" (i.e. unattached) and "Stayer" (stays attached), a taxonomy that begin to suggest how important Steher riding was in the early/middle days of
track riding and even well into the 50's and 60's. As another measure of this, related to the current topic of shellac, in some circles, notably in Chicago , it was part of the training of a young rider in the late 50's to learn how t o prepare a Steher rim, whether or not the rider was good enough to achieve th e status of being chosen as a Steher rider. Steher racing, with its special ly fitted bikes (e.g. rear-arcing forks, smaller diameter front rims, heavily braced stems), motors (i.e. the motorcycles, either "heavy" with a captain a nd a stoker, or light), and related topics are a fascinating subject that is rapidly becoming lost to memory.
So: does anyone have a supply of the fabric for a worthy cause?
Jonathan Agnew Darien, CT
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 08:19:42 -0700 (PDT) From: Tom Dalton <tom_s_dalton@yahoo.com> To: G.Duke@civenv.unimelb.edu.au Cc: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: [CR]Shellac on tyres Message-ID: <20050628151942.88752.qmail@web50207.mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Precedence: list Message: 6
...or as we say, "tires." Thanks for your post on using shellac to mount tubular tires. You mentioned that this is an old practice, but I have som e reason to believe that shellac is still being used for track tires. Needl ess to say, like everything else that tradition-bound racing cyclists might do, the re may be little benefit to using the "old way" when compared to modern alternatives. Nevertheless, shellac mounting is discussed in detail in a book called (as I recall) Bicycle Mechanics in Workshop and Competition. This is a gr eat book that doesn't get much mention on this list, but that is truly bursting with in-the-trenches mechanical advice from Steve Snowling, a (former?) pro circuit mechanic. In fact, he was Tony Doyle's personal mechanic for six- day races.
Snowling's proceedure for gluing with shellac includes many layers of shella c on the rim, a process for removing residual latex from basetape, and hours i n a worm, moist room to encourage the shellac to penetrate the texture of the base tape. Based on his discription, it sonds like one should only use th is shellac if he knows the full and proper technique and is willing to put in a lot of effort. The entire process takes weeks.
There is also an interesting section right after the bit about shellac that describes how to use cloth patches between the rim and the sidewall to bette r secure the tire to the rim. This technique involves heavy canvas and upholstery glue, and is intended to keep tire mounted in the event of suppen pressure loss during a motor-pace event.
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 09:01:50 +1000 From: Geoff Duke <G.Duke@civenv.unimelb.edu.au> To: "classicrendezvous@bikelist.org" <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org> Cc: TSWelch@Indy.net Subject: [CR]Shellac on Tyres Message-ID: <4.2.0.58.20050628084051.009be3c0@mailhost.civag.unimelb.edu.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed MIME-Version: 1.0 Precedence: list Message: 14
I am not old enough to have used this method of fixing tyres to rims but am old enough to remember seeing others use it.First of all it was only used on track wheels as shellac dries hard and has no residual sticky-ness.This makes it pretty hard to apply a spare out on the road and believe that it will stay on as you round the next bend.Most track riders had a spare pair of wheels with them track side so a change of wheel got them going for the next race.The stuff used was available from french polishing suppliers or hardware shops and came in the form of flakes.I have always been led to believe that it was made from beetles of some sort.The flakes were mixed up with methylated spirits until they dissolved and the mixture applied to both the tyre and the rim.If the rim was brand new it needed to be roughed up a little to encourage adhesion.The rim was coated once and left to dry,often overnight.Then both the rim and the tyre were coated and the tyre applied to the rim.The tyre was then pumped up hard and set aside for 24 hours to set.Shellac being what it is this was a messy process and the stuff dries really hard on both rim and tyre so any excess on the rim needed to be cleaned carefully with metho before this happened.Of course the fact that the rims never saw brake blocks meant that this was about looks as much as anything.Hope this helps, Geoff Duke in Melbourne Australia