Plasti Dip your bags

Heidi's 1997 BMW F650ST doesn't really look like it is 15 years old.  Thanks in part to its styling, low miles, and the great care from its previous owners.  However, one part was showing its age.  And that was the integral city bags.

The picture doesn't show it well, but the black bags had a milky white appearance to them in several areas that no matter what product I used I couldn't get to come off.  We didn't really want to take the freedom stickers off, but the bags are the only thing that made it look its age.  I then found a product on the Internet called Plasti Dip made by Performix.   I've heard of Plasti Dip before as a coating to dip the handles of your tools in for added grip and insulation.  But I didn't know that it came in a spray.  Also, I had used their ReRack Dishwasher rack repair recently and decided to do more research on YouTube,  www.plastidip.com, and www.dipyourcar.com.

Plasti Dip comes in so many colors that people are spraying their cars, wheels, and other things that it is a rapidly growing product line.  The basic colors of black and white can be found at Menard's, Ace Hardware, Home Depot,  etc.  Specialties like Camo or Blaze or Metallics you'll have to order.  So I got a can of black spray at Menard's for about $6.  I prepped the bags by using a hair dryer to get all the stickers off.  Then I smeared some peanut butter on the remaining adhesive.  That's right creamy peanut butter and a little time will get it off.  Or peanut oil if you got it.  Clean, and wipe everything down with rubbing alcohol and you are ready to paint.

Use light coats when spraying, and since the garage was kinda cold I kept the can in the house between coats.  I put on 5 coats total, and moved the bags into different positions between each coat to get all the surfaces.  I didn't tape off anything, including the BMW roundels.  One of the cool things of Plasti Dip is that you can peel it off.  All, or even just a part of it.  After I was all done, I just used a fingernail to pull up and peel off the Plasti Dip from the roundels.  The finished product as you can see is a real nice matte black finish to the bags.

You can still see a little line from the freedom stickers that I couldn't clean off the bags before I PlastiDipped them, but now they look like almost new bags.  And as a bonus, if the bags get scuffed up somehow, you can just clean that area and spray a patch of Plasti Dip back on that area and it blends in.

It was a fun, quick winter project and now I'm thinking of doing the wheels next, and Darryl Reemtsma is thinking of doing his whole R1200GS in the camo colors.

Chad G.