With a bit of help from Hollifield’s mad skills, I repaired and painted the VFR in preparation to sell. He began the work on Monday the 14th before leaving town. He took charge of the lower fairing that had road rash from my lowside at Arroyo Seco back in November 2006. I did not get the opportunity to document his wonderful bondo/sanding job as he already had a couple of coats of paint on it by the time I got home from work to take him to the airport. The photo to the left is a few coats into the process and no work done on blending in the two slightly different red colors.
I started on the tank with a nice thick coat of bondo over the large scratch. I applied it liberally and carefully as I was very close to the wing decal and did not want to have to deal with replacing it. I neglected to sand or polish this surface before putting on the bondo. I hoped it would do fine without.
Initial bondo
After sanding it down to form to tank
After this coat of bondo dried, I sanded it down and began to paint. After two layers of paint, I realized that there were some imperfections in my sanding that were quite ugly. You can really see the edges and a few dimples in the middle in these two photos (click to enlarge photos).
First two layers with ugly sanding
After the paint dried, I sanded it down again and filled some of the dimples with a light layer of glazing & spot putty. Sanded that to ensure smoothness and we’re off to the races again!
Sanded again, filled with glazing & spot putty, sanded
A much better result after sanding and refining from above
Back to the lower that Hollifield started for me. I put a few more coats on while it was still taped up 
and then removed the tape. There were some pretty obvious lines that needed blending. I used the airbrush from a further distance than before and with a fine misting spray. This resulted in a blending that removed the lines created by the tape and a gradual fade of the two slightly different shades of red. Click to enlarge the photo to the left. See if you can easily distinguish where the painting took place.
Now onto the rear plastics. Same story over again. I sanded it down and used the glazing & spot putty to fill in any gaps. Then, I put about 4 or 5 layers before removing the tape. Then, I blended it into the existing paint color. Finally, I put about 2 layers of clear coat on all of the painted areas. Here’s the final shots of the front and rear. Check out all of the photos at: http://photos.tonyfugere.com/gallery/v/vehicles/bikes/vfr800fi/repaint
