OK, all of you painters out there, can you answer a question?

In another thread (I started a new one to catch your attention), I detailed my saga of fitting a pair of hard bags, which the P&A catalog swears won't fit, to my FXDX. I got the bags via eBay, brand new, but the wrong color. I got some excellent advice in the thread about painting them, and after a local painter quoted me $500 to paint the two bags plain black, there's no question that I'm going to do it myself.

So: the advice I got was to prep the surface with 320 wet sandpaper, paint numerous (up to ten) light coats of gloss black (simple aerosol paint; this isn't a show bike), followed by 1000, 1500, and 2000 wet sanding, then spraying with clear.

This morning, I went out in search of wet/dry sandpaper. I live in a part of the country where very few people actually do things for themselves [My neighbors see me checking the air in my tires and ask me how I know how to do this. I'm not kidding.] Most of the stores I patronized, like the auto paint supply store where I got the materials to paint my VW back in 1983, have closed. I was able to locate wet sandpaper but only up to 600. I'm sure I could ultimately find the finer grits, but I really want to paint the bags this weekend, and I'm not going to be able to get the supplies locally.

So: what about 0000 steel wool? Home Depot has that. I used very fine steel wool back in the days when I was shellacking wood, but I never used it for auto painting. Can I get an opinion on whether that would work?

And any other opinions or advice on painting the bags would be most welcome.

Walmart has sand paper. You could hit it with 800 and clear it. Or try the 600 I think that will be good. Most people dont go as fine as I do but my bike is Viper silver and it shows everything, If you clear it and see sand marks and not happy hit it again and go with a finer grit. Important is that you get a prep cleaner and degreaser and dont touch it after you wipe it constanty turning the rag so you dont wipe the stuff you wiped off back on. Practice on someting and take your time one mistake sets you back a day. It take a little practice to get the feel and aerosol likes to run when I use it. I now use a gravity feed detail gun and expoy primer and base clear. I dont like enamel.
Good luck

Fatster,

Thanks again for your advice. I was going to shock you and tell you that we don't have Walmarts here either, but in fact, there's one about ten miles from here and as luck would have it, I have to run an errand in that direction today anyway.

I picked up a piece of 4" PVC pipe and sliced it in half. I figure I'll put the two pieces alongside my bags and paint them same as the bags, then practice and experiment on them before trying any particular item -- the final sand, the clear coat -- on them to observe the result before trying it on the bags. With any luck, I'll have some kick-ass bags before long, mounted, and I'll post a photograph or two on the site.

Fatster,

I prepped the bags earlier, then laid in an uncounted number of thin coats of gloss black. The only fly in the ointment, if you'll pardon the pun, was a freaking fly that landed on one of the wet bags.

Anyway, they're dry to the touch, although they're going to spend the night just the way they are. But after the mess, and my wife freaking out over same, and cleaning up, I'm having a really strong case of the Just Leave Well Enough Alone Blues. I'm tempted to just mount the bags as they are right now -- glossy but not perfect, no clear coat.

ya can always say
those are the wings of an Harley Eagle

an I'd never dare to paint in the living room,,,,,,,,,,, LOL

I'm so interested to see how these come out that I'm actually thinking of finding something to piant to try the above.

Fatster, how much aerosol'ing have you done, what the difference in quality that you can see if any?

Quite a bit. Aerosol is hard to control and it splatters the cap get clogged. I've changed to the base clear and it is a big differance in quality and also stength but I have done some good spray can paint jobs too. Plus I have found it hader to lay even coats with cans.