Help. Need Painting Advice, Went Down On Hard Bag.

I have been working on repairing my 6 gen. left hard bag after 60 mph low side.  Broken arm is healing up.  Leather saved my skin.  The bike is completely repaired except for this hard bag.

I have been working on this for a while and making good progress so far.  I welded the ABS cracks with soldering iron and filled in the lost plastic with ABS cement. Layer upon layer and sanded smooth until the shape is filled in.  A little bondo to fill in the small imperfections and sanded smooth.  Then masked off about 1/3 the bag and sprayed with Color Rite Primer and sanded smooth with 400 grit.

I was able to touch up my '02 fairing 4"x12" with Color Rite "Italian Red" and clear coat using an air brush.  Turned out well. 

Now red and clear paint for the hard bag.  I am artistic but very little spray painting experience, figuring this out as I go.  Do I prime and paint the whole bag with my miniature air brush or do I try to blend the new paint with the old.  I only have about 1 oz of red which I will thin with 1 oz reducer.  Almost 2 oz of clear coat left.  I may need more paint.  Won't be perfect but better than it was.  I find this red very difficult to work with.

Any advice?

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Given the size of the repair I would shoot the whole thing, but red is notoriously hard to match.  I wouldn't attempt it with an airbrush unless you like to sand. Might be worth it to have a local shop do the final coat.

I would (and have) ripped the whole bag down to repair/re-shoot.

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Dupli-Color GM 398 was pretty much an exact match out of a rattle can but when you buffed it, the color went to more of an orange.

I doubt you can find 398 anymore in that it was around about 7-8 years ago but if you do and can get it on smooth, it may work if there are no other options.

I agree with Seb for that size of repair you are better served to spray the entire side( appears the back is black). Ask around the car dealerships (high end models)for a mobile painter that services them , matching color is a way of life for us. I have a complete mixing system on my truck, and routinely mix to match at least four to five times a day, yours would be a piece of cake .

Any advice?

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do I try to blend the new paint with the old.

Italian Red is a lot easier to blend than Candy Glory Red I can tell you that much but you will spend a lot more effort trying to make it perfect than painting the whole thing. Usually it is easier to blend when you have a bigger area to work with. If you mask off the areas of the original paint, there will always be a thick visible line you will have to aggrassively buff and at the end it will slightly show. Take the whole thing apart like Seb has shown you and paint the whole thing.

Thanks all for all the advice.  I am sure you guys are right painting the whole bag will give the best results.  The bags are 12 years old and well used.  Painting both of them would make good sense too since the other one is scratched up.

Cost will be a big factor.  I have enough Color Rite paint left over from a previous fairing repair to paint the damaged area only so cost of material will be 0. Quality will not be great but an improvement.  I may sell the bike and bags next spring so that is a factor.

How much would be reasonable cost for new paint and have it sprayed?  How much paint and clear coat would it take for each bag?  Afraid cost of painting may be close to what the old bags are worth.   David Silvers sells new bag sets for $495.  Painted mine would be worth half that.

Still not decided if I want to spend the money to do this right.  

Buying new $495 bags and selling the old ones on CL may make sense.

You will spend up to around $200 to have those painted for you. Red is not cheap.

If you know you will be selling, then do your prep and just shoot them with black rattle can paint.

If it were me, I'd just buy the aerosol paint from color-rite and spray the whole side. i just bought one of their tri-pack aerosol kits off of amazon for my RC51 that has 3 cans, undercoat color, red, clearcoat. The package was only $70 or so. More than enough paint for one bag lid.

You could paint them black and put a GIVI logo on them. I bought a used red Shad topcase for my wife's green bike. I hit the colored top with Rustoleum peelable black rubber wheel coating. It looks good, is reversible and didn't cost much. Not saying you should do that but if you're gonna buy new bags to go with the bike when you sell anyway just do a down and dirty cheap paint job on what you have now that you can live with. That way if you sell your present bags you won't limit the possible buyer to a red bag.