Recently purchased a used tour pak for the road glide. Prepped and painted it sierra red to match the bike. Looks great , but the color is off. Indoors the color appears darker and in the light of day it almost looks tomato red with very little metallic pop. This is a really high metallic color. If tilted too catch the rays just right it's a dead on match-otherwise
yuk! Any tips on what went wrong? Thanks

 

Did you use HD paint? If so was it a base coat and top coat setup? Did you use HD primer and HD clear coat? Did you use the HD urethane activator?

 

the only thing that would make a miss match is possibly if it uses a silver or gold base or its just doesnt match.. Other than that you can change the color a bit with pressure at the gun but usually not enuff to make any real difference.. If its that far off from what you describe then its off.... Ill ask the same question is it harley paint and is it base clear or a tri coat.. Im hitting the local paint store this week and try to bet something to match my 06 glide brandy wine and im hoping to paint the inner fairing and just use base clear ..

 

Take off your side covers and look at them next to what you painted, In the same light and the same angle. The color may be correct, it is different angles and light that make it seam miles off in the color match world. If you look at your bike if the fender is in shade and the tank in sun they may look different. That being said there are many ways to change the color when you paint. from air pressure at the gun to amount of reducer to drying time.The paint you bought could be mixed wrong, a drop off of one tint can change the color quite a bit.

 

You could have used everything Dawg mentioned and still not gotten a great match due to different gun, pressure, application, ambient conditions, etc. Guys that do this for a living shoot test panels to get the color match right before shooting the piece. This is one of the reasons why it is very difficult to beat HD's discounted price on painted TPs rather than undertaking what you did in taking apart the TP, prepping, buying paint, etc.

Frankly, you may be the only person who will know the paint match isn't perfect--I doubt that I would notice the difference. Your eye will be the most critical IMO.

 

Yes to all

 

it's B/C

 

fireman44, Your close to my problem- doing what you suggest they do not match, but if I change the angle of the tp walla it matchs. Guy at the local paint store thinks it's a metallic orientation issue rather than color mismatch.

 

could very well be... id be more apt to say not enuff or maybe too much metallic ? but then in high metallic you can really mess that up with gun pressure.. the problem is with the new base clears you really cant tell till you lay down the clear then its too late