Or maybe a 54, that was a long time ago and after awhile of trying to fix the disaster that was hiding under tens of gallons of filler, I didn't care what it was. I remember one guy asking the boss if it would be cheaper just to buy him a new one.
Polyester/styrene body filler AKA Bondo, is basically the same stuff as the "2 part glaze" They're both polyester/styrene based. The glazes often have more talc in them to make them sand easier. Skimming a panel with a filler and then blocking it is not much different than putting a few coats of polyester high build primer on and then blocking it. The real difference is that you don't have to tie up a booth to skim a panel or a whole car and a skim of filler usually is ready to sand faster than a wet sprayed coating.
Haha. This reminded me of an older guy in my body shop class. I think he would take the class just to do side jobs. Anyways, this guy would use the cheese grater(never saw a use for that tool) on newly applied filler and save the shavings. Then he would mix them in with his next batch of filler. I told my dad about this and he says he had seen people do that before but first they tried to soften it back up with thinner. Now THAT is a back-job. My dad was a career metal-man(he did not like the term body-man)
Around this area we refer to them as being "stitched together" Basically good the front half of one wreck stitched to the good rear half of another. They often break at where they were stitched together in a wreck. I've seen several article on hand formed Italian cars of the 50's and 60's that after being hammered into shape were covered with a thin coat of filler and then blocked smooth.
Skim coating and block sanding was common on custom cars in the sixties and I have heard of it being done on hand built Italian sports cars in the fifties. Avantis came that way from the factory in the seventies and early eighties because they had trouble getting good fibreglass parts out of worn dies. It is the best and quickest way to get a wavy panel straight. It is standard practice on Corvette restoration, there is no other way to get them straight. Not so necessary since high build primer and 2 part glazing putty replaced lacquer primer and spot putty. I have seen bondo shavings used to thicken bondo for plugging big rust holes but never did it myself. Call me crude but I was never that crude.
Body filler will keep for several years if the can is well sealed, eventually it will get too stiff to use, or lose strength to the point where it won't harden no matter how much hardener you put in.
People whine about everything now days. Use Bondo, James Bondo, Silly Putty, whatever and pay no attention to the whiners.
Boyd took a brand new Brookville 32 and mudded the whole car!!! The statement was they get a better overall finish !!
Pretty common if you want a fibreglass body straight. Avanti used to do this on brand new bodies, every Corvette restorer does it. Even the best fibreglass bodies get wavy with age, most are that way from new especially if pulled out of the mold too soon.
A dime laid flat,,, what I find is a thickness of a dime standing up. The "whack and pack" or "cave and pave" type repair is where the stigma comes from. I recently found some 2" thick in a door skin. they kicked the damage in then filled the surface from feather edge to 2" back to feather edge. What I get a kick out of now a days is the statement like "no filler" followed shortly by 5 gallons of high build filler primer were used. Sure there's $2900.00 worth of primer on a car instead of $ 60.00 worth of filler.
I avoid talking anything car to non-car people. All they know is what they learn from the jerk-water car TV shows that I don't watch. Bondo... I've seen it abused, with chicken wire, chimney flash, tar, gutter screen, etc. Lately I try to get by with just a wipe of spot-putty if possible.
The problem I have with plastic is it can shrink or expand and is not water proof so if it is applied wrong , to fill holes ,they can show back up.
Friend of mine had a OT 99 Ford Ranger for several years. Her nephew rolled it over when he hit a culvert. The area above both wheelwells on the bed were 1/4" or thicker with filler. If he hadn't of rolled it and bent it in that area so that the filler cracked and some chipped off, we'd never have know it. No telling how long it had been on there, the white paint didn't give any clues as to it's presence.
Polyester is a plastic, and I have seen plenty of polyester based fillers shrink quite a bit when they cure. Epoxy doesn't shrink.
Fillers shrink and move when they are not used properly ie. not catalysed properly. The vast majority of "issues" that occur with body fillers are directly the result of people not using the correct amount of hardener either too much or too little. Too much and it becomes brittle, cracks gets pinholes etc too little and it will shrink and expand because it is not stable. Used and mixed properly fillers result in very, very few problems.
Damn near every nice paint job on the street has plastic filler. And yes, many have it more than 1/4 in. thick. Back in the 70s, I worked on an assembly line building step vans. When the truck hit the end of the assembly line, any dents or scrapes were marked during final inspection. The truck was pulled into a repair area where a body man did a quick touch up. They would slick them and blend the paint back. If it had a crease an inch deep where they couldn't bump it, they fill it. New trucks. If there is no holes in the back of the panel where moisture can get in, it will last as long as the vehicle. If the panel has a seam, most guys in the north up here will use duraglass for a first coat. This is fiberglass stranded waterproof mud. Get on it quick cause it dries hard. Thin coat of duraglass, then cover it with a lightweight filler to make sanding easier. Many of the custom chops you see have more than a 1/4 in the roof and you wouldn't know unless they are wrecked. Some of the talent here is capable of keeping it a dime or less. Most aren't.
My buddy had the best quote ever. He mentioned how you never see the filler stage of any car build. His quote.... "Body filler is like watching porn, everybody uses it, but nobody talks about it."
I'd like to see the sales figures for a year, quantity of gallons sold. 8 credits of night classes should cover everything right ?
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