I’m sure many of you have vast experiences with this, but I just discovered that woodworkers, painters, general constructioneers, etc. have fallen in love with Bondo for quick repairs to wood, cement fiber siding, and many other facets of the (construction) contractor industry. I’d heard of using auto-body filler a decade or so ago for cement fiber siding repairs, but had no idea it had grown like this!
Here’s a small sampling of what HomeDepoh sells with the Bondo brand:
The 3 major divisions appear to be Body Filler (traditional “Bondo”), All Purpose, and Wood Filler. I’m looking to fill a non-structural gap up to 1/2" between wood panels, strictly cosmetic in nature, but I want something with more structure than the usual go-to (wood filler putty that’s pretty much the same as wallboard spackle). Anyone with any experience with this stuff (or anything else along these lines) willing to weigh in? You’d think this stuff’d be pretty even in pricing, but it seems to vary with “intended purpose” (All Purpose being quite a bit more costly, it seems) and supplier (e.g. Harbor Freight appears to vend cheaper, but only Body Filler 28oz)…
Appreciate any thoughts/experiences you’re willing to share.
Great for repairing outside door jams that have rotted on the bottom. Back doors, garage doors, etc. Cut out the rotted section, glue in some replacement wood and finish with bondo.
I recently used regular ol’ Bondo to patch a hole in my 2’x3’ Steamroller print block. Inadvertantly carved a 2”x1” hole in the letter K of my Tiki poster currently on display in the DMS hallway. Patched and sanded the hole with zero artifact on the final printed paper.
Depends on if you’re painting the wood or staining it. Regular Bondo obviously won’t stain so if you’re painting it, it’ll work just fine. Never tried their wood filler but I’ve used the Wunderfill from Rockler with great success. Comes in a variety of colors to match your wood and it spreads like creamy peanut butter, compared to the spackle style wood filler you mentioned.
We use Bondo regularly at my workplace to fill holes and rebuild carving on vintage picture frames, and well as general gap filling when spackling or Durham’s doesn’t fit the bill.
Autobody guys I know never use “BONDO”. They use other types of body filler (evercoat rage/rage gold). Bondo is a consumer brand of 3m body filler. It’s more expensive than typical filler and it doesn’t layout/sand as well. Professional body guys never use it. Its great for other stuff and it’s sold everywhere which is why it’s so popular.
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