Customer Sandi Preston in Brooklyn, NY shared her tips for easily installing the Walnut Studiolo Bullwhip Leather Bar Wraps on her bicycle - and a few creative new ideas as well.
Color-coded rubber bands at the end of each strand mid-way through braiding to keep the strands distinct.
The Walnut Studiolo Bullwhip Leather Bar Wraps use a braiding to secure the gorgeous leather to the handlebars of a bike.
One of the biggest challenges when installing these handlebar wraps is getting the braid started, and then getting a handle on the braiding pattern.
Sandi's trick? Color-coding. Sandi wrapped different colored rubber bands around the ends of each strand to help following along with the A-B-C-D pattern.
Follow along with Sandi's other projects and yoga biking life on Instagram: @sandiyogini.
Color-coded rubber bands at the end of each strand mid-way through braiding to keep the strands distinct.
The Walnut Studiolo Bullwhip Leather Bar Wraps use a braiding to secure the gorgeous leather to the handlebars of a bike.
One of the biggest challenges when installing these handlebar wraps is getting the braid started, and then getting a handle on the braiding pattern.
Sandi's trick? Color-coding. Sandi wrapped different colored rubber bands around the ends of each strand to help following along with the A-B-C-D pattern.
Getting to Know Braiding
If you didn't grow up making fancy hair braids with your friends or your dolls - a crafty life skill many boys miss out on - braiding can at first seem like a wildly complex maneuver, but it's actually very simple and repetitive. Sandy found it helpful to follow this handy YouTube video by John Zhu which shows how to braid with easy-to-follow color coded straps: https://youtu.be/1Svt-Ba5ePYWorking With Different Bar Styles
Sandi's bike doesn't have brakes mid-way down her drop bars, they are at the top of the handlebars. With no brake hood to hide the stitched-on section, she came up with a clever solution. After sewing on this section, she rotated the wraps so that the stitched part was hidden on the underside of the drop bars.
Finishing the Braid
Sandi also had a unique way of tying off the leather to finish the braid. "I wrapped my entire bar and tucked the ends into the holes at the tip of the bars. Nothing was cut. The only tape applied is what's binding the end wraps at the masthead of the bar," she explains.Learning the Walnut Way
Walnut's founder and master product maker Geoff Franklin put together a tutorial for how to install our Bullwhip Leather Bar Wraps. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRxo6D53lHo]A Gorgeous Job Well Done
After the project was finished, Sandi was rather satisfied. "They feel great!" she said. Beautiful work, Sandi! Thanks for the great tips. If you've got a unique process for incorporating Walnut Studiolo products into your life and your projects, we'd love to hear about it! Simply drop us a line to share your project.We Make it Easy - Watch the Videos
No matter what Walnut Studiolo product you're installing, we make it easy. Check out our series of product tutorials on our YouTube channel.
Follow along with Sandi's other projects and yoga biking life on Instagram: @sandiyogini.
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