This column was patched with Bondo around the base. The information out there is very confusing.
The information from Bondo says 2-part the body filler is good to use on Wood, metal, ceramics, fiberglass, etc. I looked at a different brand “MinWax”. Their 2-part wood filler says it’s good for wood, metal, ceramics, fiberglass, etcIt gives the impression that the main ingredients in the 2-part body filler and the 2-part wood filler are similar.
The consistency is the same. They both harden quickly. They both can be sanded and painted. Just to be on the safe side, so far I’ve used the body filler for fiberglass and metal work. I’ve used the wood filler for wood work. So far no problem. My gut tells me they may be interchangeable.Just my 2-cents.
Hi Pascal,Bondo makes two products that are very similar: Bondo General Purpose Putty and Bondo Body Filler. I believe Bondo Body Filler is the product most people are referring to when they say “Bondo”. The only obvious difference between Bondo General Purpose Putty and Bondo Body Filler is that the general purpose putty comes with a white hardener and the body filler comes with a red filler. I emailed the company and asked what the difference between the two products was. They told me that the only difference was the hardener.Bondo also makes a product called Bondo Wood Filler. This product is substantially different than the other two products.
While I have had mostly good luck using Bondo Body Filler for wood repair I think the Bondo Wood Filler might be a better product for wood. It costs about twice as much as the other two Bondo products that I mentioned but the extra cost might be worth it. I discussed why in an earlier post.
I am a painter currently working on a heritage restoration. I was obligated to start the exterior portion of the contract in the fall and did extensive patching with Dyna-patch Pro. It held up well over a winter despite going on in cold weather. I think it will be fine. The new carpenters are using auto body filler to finish repairs this spring and swear up and down it will last.The company has been around a while so i am reserving judgement but the guys are slobs who constantly borrow gear so my hunch is the use of bondo is a corner cutter for the sake of a quick dry time and i fully expect it to fail. I look forward to charging for fixing it later!.looks at 10 year old bondo repair on 30 year old Pozzi wood windows.I hate to break it to you Scott, but you couldn’t be more wrong when it comes to bondo.
For repairs like my wood windows, the trick is to not only thoroughly dry the wood as best as possible, make sure to then apply some sort of wood hardener which gives the bondo much more grip and essentially waterproofs the wood.I also used it to repair about 2 inches of wood rot on the bottom edge of my front door. I drilled up into the door, and glued dowels in place in order to give the many layers of bondo something to hold onto. Its lasted over 5 years now.
Just re-painted it with some gloss waterbase alkyd/urethane and expect it to be around for many years to come. Ok, out of my league here but hoping for some advice! I recently commissioned a large 3D A (made from pressure treated plywood, finished with some sort of bar top resin/epoxy and then painted (primer and high gloss) for a high school courtyard. The top of the “feet” of the A are not level and hold significant amounts of water – one foot actually slopes towards the main part of the A and thus holds water near a seam. The artists that did this are nice, but I’m not sure they have enough experience to really say if this will be a problem or not (and they will say it is fine).
We will of course need to continually paint this, but standing water plus wood just seems bad (it is doing this in August when it is hot, so I can’t imagine when it is cool).So, my question – is some type of filler that levels the surface and slopes it away from the main part of the A a solution for me? I would imagine it would need to be around 1/4 in the thickest part – maybe more – to start the slope. Albatron, Flex-tek, Bondo?
To use these products without failing, would we need to sand all the way through the paint and sealer levels to get to wood or would a serious scuffing/sanding suffice? Thanks for any help anyone can offer! The feet of your “A” have a fundamental design flaw and the only proper way to fix them is to rebuild them. Anything else is a bandaid, which actually may make things worse.
Standing water on wood as well as many other materials is never good. Proper drainage and prevention from absorption are key in the design of any structure that will be exposed to the elements. The “artists” need to learn from this so they take drainage into consideration in future projects, and should be tasked with fixing the structure. This means repositioning the horizontal faces so they drain water off to the ground. And, further the ground should slope away from the structure. It is not acceptable to have an exterior horizontal surface that will create a basin, especially over a seam.
If even the tiniest bit of water seeps in and freezes, you’ll have a bigger seam. If it doesn’t freeze, it will seep into the edges of the plywood, causing the wood to bloat. Each cycle of seeping, drying and seeping will make it worse. I’ve used Bondo for wood repair for twenty years or so. I’ve used it to repair wood windows and rafter tails mostly. The results have been good but there have been problems:1. Bondo shrinks.
This isn’t a huge problem but it does require a patch to be overfilled and sanded down.2. When Bondo is feathered the repair can fail over time.3. Bondo is a bit difficult to apply.
It sticks to application device and as it is spread it is dragged away from where you want it to stay.I recently tried the Bondo Wood Filler. I don’t have experience with it over time but it seems like it might be a significant improvement. It had no noticeable shrinkage, it was much easier to apply and it seemed to adhere better to the wood. I suspect that it isn’t as hard or strong as normal Bondo but I don’t think that is an issue for my purposes. I looked for some of the products mentioned in this blog, but I didn’t find them at Lowes or Home Depot. I found Bondo Wood Filler at Home Depot. It is substantially more expensive than normal Bondo but the cost is still small if it is used for a small amount of routine patching.
I paint it so the fact that it is wood colored isn’t a feature for my purposes but it seemed like it might take stain and be a fairly close match to wood if is used to patch wood that will be stained and clear coated.Bondo All Purpose Putty: I believe this product is the same as standard Bondo except that it comes with a white hardener instead of red. It might be marginally better for a purpose where a gray patching compound instead of a red patching compound is desired but it is harder to see when the white hardener has been mixed in thoroughly. I am fixing wood rot myself and have never done this before.
I did watch a bunch of YouTube videos and some where in it all got very confused. I saw that Abatron was rated number one but no one had it in stock by where I live so some how I got on Bondo. Some where in the process I ended up getting Bondo all purpose putty. I have significant wood rot and scraped it all out with huge holes and huge part of the frame on my front door gone I ended up using Bondo all purpose putty to fill in and have filled it in about 15 times to the point now it’s molded and sculptured and I am almost done. After reading about your comments on Bondo now I am very worried.
I am very concerned that this is going to fail and not look good within a couple of years. What would you suggest I do from here? This is some significant bondo layered on top of each other to make it look like wood. I am a simple girl just trying to fix my front door. I don’t have any electric powered tools to scrape it back off and not sure how I would even get it off because it’s like cement now. Can you give me some suggestions?
As a restoration contractor with more than 35 years experience I figured I would weigh in on this. I rarely use bondo for repairs with wood.
For me it is more a matter of having the right material on hand. Any wood repair that uses a filler non-wood material as a filler needs proper preparation or failure is going to happen. If Bondo or epoxies are put onto a poorly prepared substrate. The Bondo will be more likely to fail.
Any repair is only as solid as its substrate. I’m not a huge fan of consolidents, but unless you can get your area being repaired down to clean woodmy preferred method, you have to harden the rotted material.
Bondo Wood Filler
This being done I have found Bondo inferior to Wood-Epox. Interior the failure rate is much lower,but still not as effective as Abitron. My preferred product is Flex-tek by ARTadvanced repair technology Interior or exterior the failure rate is minimal. The system is based on removal of all rotted material and replacing it with new wood using Flextek as glue/filler. Hundreds of repairs on historic properties and no call backs.
Structural Wood Rot Repair
Mostly lower window sash parts. It is designed to expand and contract just like the wood. Remember any repair depends on good preparation. This is sensationalist and un-informed. While there are many specific wood repair epoxies out there: when the substrate is consolidated properly first (cleaned with denatured alc., filled with stabilizer, and then bonded to with a low density catalyst, it is not only acceptable but prudent. Albatron, West systems, and other preservation epoxy systems are great for large projects, but they are cost-prohibitive for a DIYer in a rural area without access to specialty hardware stores or special order.Bondo is in fact engineered to flex! Expansion, contraction, and shock are all a reality of the service life of bondo.
It must be mixed and applied properly tho.The preservation-grade wood epox versions are great, but anyone with experience in resins, mold making, and form work knows how to gauge a render properly, regardless of the material they are working with.Most of the failures of bondo in preservation work have to do with poor understanding of the process, and limitations of filling. Not of the material itself.
There are countless tools and products originally intended for one use yet crossover perfectly well into other industries or for other uses. That doesn’t make doing so incorrect. If the intended results are achieved in an acceptable manner for the user then how they got there IS in fact correct. Bondo on wood succeeds FAR more than it ever fails. It’s one of the most frequently used materials to fill and patch wood daily and has been for decades. It does fail sometimes, there are reasons, there are some other fabulous products like the Abatron line but that doesn’t make Bondo all you’ve claimed it to be.
It simply works and has for decades in thousands and thousands of applications. So IT’S NOT never the answer.
Kurtis, one of the problems with Bondo lies in your explanation. Most DIYers don’t know how to gauge a render properly and have zero experience with resins or mold making, but they are encouraged to slap some Bondo on to patch holes by lazy painters or carpenters. This almost always results in failure.As a professional I used Bondo for years (following the instructions properly) only to find failure after failure just a few short years down the line. With epoxy systems designed specifically for wood I have not had similar failures. I have also followed other professionals testing that yields similar results as mine.In Bondo’s defense they do make wood epoxy versions, but the typical practice of repairing wood structures with auto-body filler is not a realistic practice for long term repair.
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