When wrapping bars for a restoration, I try to recreate the original
look. So if the builder wrapped from the top to the ends of the bar,
I will do the same.
>Re brake levers: I always mark the location of the band on the bar,
>remove the lever, and wrap the bar with just the band on. Then you
>can do a tight wrap around the band and if you're careful, you
>don't have to do the figure 8 thing, or at worst just use a little
>snip to cover the bar in one spot. Wrapping around the brake lever
>can use a lot of extra tape, which you don't have with Tressostar.
Cloth tape is so think that it makes sense to put the lever body over it as Drew described above. That appears to be how most builders did it in the old days.
I find that small details really make a great difference. When I see an Herse with tape running up from the ends, wrapped figure-8 around the brake levers, and finished with electric tape, it just doesn't look right. (Those techniques mostly have been employed more recently, because thicker modern tapes can't be wrapped the "traditional" way.)
Remember that in the old days, handlebar tape was redone frequently. I read somewhere that Fausto Coppi insisted on having his bars rewrapped before every stage of a major Tour. That may be a myth, but cloth tape does not look good for long if you ride hard. The cyclotourists, who did not have time to rewrap their bars all the time, got around that with shellac.
Matching the shellac colors can be a challenge, too. Singer preferred orange shellac (available as flakes) on white tape. Herse had a deeper brown color, which I have replicated with yellow tape and more brownish pre-mixed shellac. Colors also change over time, so it may be hard to figure out what something looked like originally.
Fortunately, if you find that your tape job is incorrect or no longer to your liking, changing the bar tape is comparatively easy. If your restored paint job is wrong, or a frame repair is incorrect, it is more involved to get it right.
Jan Heine
Editor
Bicycle Quarterly
140 Lakeside Ave #C
Seattle WA 98122
http://www.bikequarterly.com