Still no pictures to add, but I’ve started using PVC cement as a filler/repairer and it seems to be working well. I scraped and peeled the 3M stuff off and then hit the surface with more sandpaper and acetone to encourage adhesion before applying the cement to the plastic. It has to go on in fairly thin layers, otherwise you get a ton of air bubbles and pinholes, but through a regimen of application, sanding, application, sanding, and so on, the plastic panels are smoothing out and taking shape. At this point, one of the saddle bag lids, the main tank cover, the side fairings, the right side cover, the lower cowl bit, the trunk lid, and the trunk trim bit are all ready for primer. The main fairing is going to stay on the bike and get painted in place, so I’m fixing to do that last. The remaining bits still have some build-up and sand-down work to be done before they’re ready to have a final wet-sand to be ready for primer. I have tried putting the PVC cement on some of the panels and giving them some pretty serious flex and I haven’t seen any problems with the fill cracking, stressing, delaminating, or any other issues, so I’m pretty hopeful that this will wind up looking good. From what I can tell, the PVC cement is basically PVC fillings suspended in MEK and once the MEK evaporates, the PVC hardens and just becomes plastic. By sanding down the paint and using a little acetone to soften up the underlying plastic, the PVC and the ABS should be bonding pretty tightly.
While the PVC was drying last night, I took the opportunity to get some PVC piping that I had left over to build a frame for painting the parts. It’s fairly small diameter pipe (1.5″, I think?) and I basically just made a quick bar-on-a-stand out of it so that I can use bent-up wire hangers to suspend the plastic body bits in order to be able to get them well covered. I’ve also started covering the various bolt-holes in the panels with duct tape from the un-painted side and will work on getting them masked the rest of the way as Paint Day get closer.