The International CBX Owners Association

Quick and easy, how to repaint the black backgrounds and reverse letters on Honda and Kawasaki side covers. Hat tip to my friend and mentor Dave McMunn (Daves79X) for teaching me this technique years ago.

OK, you've got a refinished engine cover, done the way you like, but the black letters or background needs refinishing.We want it to end up like this:
Alrighty, here are our patients, already draped for the procedure. These are crank end caps from a Honda CBX service project. We could not resist the urge to polish these up and so now we need to repaint the recessed backgrounds from around the HONDA letters, and fill in the letters "Made in Japan" below. Side note: The "Made in Japan" letters are NOT painted originally.
Step 1 is to mask around the area so we're not painting any more area than needed.
Step 2 is to get any last traces of polishing compound or polish out of there, we need squeaky clean metal so the paint will stick. Acetone and RestoSwabs are ideal.

RestoSwabs! Saturate with acetone and swab out the recess till the swabs are clean, and let it dry.

VHT Caliper Paint, will work fine for this, appropriate sheen, durable. Frankly, any good black paint will work fine.

This steel ruler is ideal for our squeegee work, and that's a flat-woven microfiber cloth. Don't use anything fuzzy. The ruler is wide enough to span the recess, and it's just flexible enough that we can force it to conform to the surface and use it as a squeegee.
We masked the covers closely to the recesses and we made a quick pass with the spray paint. You'd be better off painting these one at a time, as it's somewhat a matter of timing for the optimum wipe-off.

Watch the spray paint closely, you want to wait just after it "flashes" when it no longer looks wet and the solvent that is in the paint has evaporated off, but the paint is still very fragile. We're talking 90 seconds or less. Peel the masking tape.

Alright - the paint has flashed, we've removed the mask, now we'll use the ruler and cloth to squeegee the paint from the surface of the cover and the tops of the letters.

Wrap your cleanish flat-woven cloth fairly tightly over the edge of the ruler, and moisten the tip well with the acetone. Now draw it backwards over the recess with fairly firm pressure, drawing the paint from the flat raised surfaces onto the cloth. It will take a few strokes, move the cloth to fresh, re-moisten it, and retry including from the other direction to get 98% of it off. Tidy up the rest of the cover with the dampened cloth and acetone to remove other overspray by hand.
With a little practice, it will look almost perfect. STOP. Let it cure overnight, and touch it up further for that last 2% after it does.
Looks good! We'll buff it up after the paint cures a little more and make a last pass with a bit of solvent and a toothpick till we're 100% happy with it.