Grew up in Branson. Yeah, that ride down to the ferry is awesome. In fact, as soon as I get some parts and my bike back together, I' heading that way.

 

Sorry for the thread hijack Yogie...

I personally think that if you can touch up to avoid rust, you can ride a long way on the cost savings for paint.

I had a family member drag a shop vac over my fender, and I spun a wrench into my oil tank cover. These things are easier to accept over time.

If someone can't point it out from the sidewalk while I cruise by, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

^^^THIS^^^

I have found more damages of "mysterious" origin (no mystery about a little boy with big boy tools) to various vehicles the last few years. I think my boys are finally past the gratuitous vandalism stage.

Now they "borrow" dad's tools and leave them all over the back yard.

I vote for the touch up option and give it some time.

P.S. Wait until the little dude gets hold of a rattle can of paint and decides to "customize" dad's bike.

 

Sorry to hear this Yogie, that really sucks. I just painted a customers 2015 Fat Bob's saddle bags, fairing & tank with this Tri-Coat Red Sunglo. It's very expensive paint that is so far, only available from Harley. It's somewhat difficult to work with when the newly parts have to match the existing parts. You first have to lay the metallic charcoal base coat, followed by several coats of the translucent red. Each coat of the red gets darker, and you continue with such coats until it matches the other parts. It took me about 5 coats of red to make it match the existing fenders.

The reason I'm telling you this, is because when I was working with this paint, I couldn't help but thinking of it as being next to impossible to make an undetectable repair if needed. I've been painting for the past 26 years, and my companies specialty is Paint Touch Up's & Repairs. In fact I offer a 4-day course on this and have trained hundreds of people through the years.

If you were my customer, I wouldn't take on this repair. It would be much easier and much more effective to completely repaint & stripe the fender. But that wouldn't be cheap. Just the quart of the Charcoal base, Red Candy & activator came to $337.76. Then you need Clear Coat and the stripe decals. That would probably bring it to over $400.00 just in materials. I'm sure most painters would charge at least $200.00 to do the work.

So you might actually be better off buying a new painted fender from Harley. I haven't priced one in a long time, but it may actually be cheaper to replace, than to repaint. It's worth checking anyway.

Sorry I don't have more favorable information to offer. But hopefully you can at least be cautious false repair claims.

 

I look at this way, eventually your going to drop the bike, or stack it, so don't worry about, I came off diesel last year and have slowly in my own time replaced the parts, not worth worrying about.

Just get some touch up paint and then look round for a paint shop, and the get it done when you have some spare cash.

Buying a whole fender is probably going to be more expensive.

 

Thanks guys, haven't been back here for a few days and was surprised with all the info. I checked into having the side pans painted to match a while back and one guy took a gadget and set in on my tank to read and just shook his head and said " good luck, even a little difference in air pressure when spraying can change the color."
Price for paint and labor for the fender is about what I expected. With what little dealings I've had with the Harley dealership I'd guess a new painted fender would be close to a grand...
We have a Custom Detail shop about 40 miles away, I'll drop by soon and let the boys there give me some ideas. I'd rather just cover it and go on... Dang shame it had to happen with no idea how.

Thanks again

 

Removed the fender this morning and dropped it off at the custom detail place at lunch time. Told them I'd be back in a few days but couldn't stand driving by tonight and not checking in. There was my fender, he'd taken the exact same color pin stripe slightly wider and came off the original making a slight curve covering the scratched area then came back into the original again.. Doing the same to the other side of the fender it looks great and I'm thrilled. Cost was $5.30 so I see a couple large pizzas heading out to these boys next week.