It's called 'all metal'. I've seen it crack, just like regular filler. Not a fan of it. Kitty Hair has more integrity, if you ask me.
You don't want to sand 95% of it off...because that would mean you didn't need it in the first place. Thats wasting time and money. But...last thing you want is to have lots of metal islands showing thru as that usually means remaining high spots you'll have to blend in by overapplying high build primer. Just use the filler, keep it thin as you can while attaining flatness and if you have a full "coloring" of the panel, thats fine. You then get most of your scratches and imperfections out with the filler sanding and the primer has less to do or shrink into. Filler isn't a BAD product...unless its misused. It's just part of the extensive procedure to get straight panels on an old, beat down car body. Keep it thin and apply it to good metal with no pinholes/rust etc and it lasts a long time.
Thanks again for all the replies, now for the next question. Do you go "Old School" and apply Rage Gold on freshly sandblasted PITTED metal or apply two part primer first? Then there is the third question, multi coats of primer vs Rage Gold? I want my Roadster perfect, my time and the cost of materials really doesn't matter.
AlumaLead was made by PPG. Actually it was made by a small company I worked for, and labeled for PPG. It's no longer available. All Metal is a similar product, but not near as good. We made that also. Biggest difference, AlumaLead was an aluminum powder, mixed with a powdered catalyst, and you mixed in the resin. All Metal is aluminum powder mixed with resin, and you add the catalyst. The resin used in AlumaLead was more costly, but had a better curing profile.
In the dealership where I worked back in the 60's we used alumalead a lot. Mostly in small spots or spots where the work was right in your eyes like the unfinished corners of some Chrysler and Imperial fenders. Much better than the plastic filler as it had very very few or no pinholes and finished like metal much smoother. The only problem was it was a bit more vicious when applying and would "Sag" slightly while curing but it you allowed for it flowing a bit it was great stuff. It would cure slightly tacky and the first few passes with sandpaper might fill the paper with crap but after a few passes is was real hard. We use to finish it like lead using metal files and it would featheredge a lot better than plastic filler with no flaking. Never had any comebacks for lifting or sanding scratches showing later on.
Enjenjo...i used Allmetal back in the late 80's. It was supposed to be a better filler. I know it was harder to sand but it seemed to work good. Just recently i started to redo a car that was done in the 80's also and it was done with Allmetal. I was suprised at how well it stood the test of time despite it's misuse. It was over an inch in areas and put over seams not welded. Most of which did not crack. This is making me wonder if i shouldn't start using it again...maybe just on special projects (not abusing it like on that car) You said it wasn't as good as the product no longer availble. Is it still a very good product? I normally use rage extreme. Clark
There is nothing wrong with using fillers as long as its done right. I was at a well know builders shop a few years back (no names please) and he was building a 57 Chevy called "Chezoom" and they had used over 50 gallons of bondo, most of it was sanded off but still, 50 gallons it was more of a sculpture. I use evercoat products, reasonably priced, no pinholes, sands easy but its not yellow.
Good info, Iv'e always used bondo or some other cheaper filler, allways had pinholes, thought I was just not mixing it enough, but then again im not much good at body work.
I use the Rage prouducts for "better stuff", and Z-grip for lower end stuff, both are made by Evercoat, the Z-grip is a mid line stuff that is way, way, better than Bondo, etc, and is less than 1/2 the cost of Rage Gold, or rage Extreme. Some of the truck and trailer work I do is not worthy of $40.00 a gallon filler, but the $12.00 stuff is a waste of time and sandpaper no matter how "budget" the repair.
Bob, if you feel like bombing down the Super-7 or 33 to Norwalk, you should be able to get it here: Finishmaster 17 Broad St. Norwalk, CT 06851 (203) 847-2427 Or, if you happen to be out that way: Finishmaster 390 Fairfield St. Stamford, CT 06902 (203) 961-1550
All Metal is still a good product, but often misused. AlumaLead was discontinued because it was expensive, and there were other products competing with it that were much cheaper. Also, the resin that was used caused staining on some of the newer paints. A little secret, most cheap fillers are made of dirt. Very clean, and highly refined, but dirt none the less. That's why they pop, any exposure on the back side lets moisure wick into it. The better fillers are made of a plastic powder, no wicking, and the lightweight fillers use plastic microbubbles to reduce weight.
i always noticed its kinda strange how cars get posted here in bare metal, then just "dissapear" for months and BAM! straight as an arrow fresh paint!! wow! they just sprayed right over the super straight chopped sectioned peaked welded and leaded sheetmetal! damn! what skills!! hah. yeah. my ass.
Well my experience has been that "well finished" metal (and even new metal), can look SUPER STRAIGHT until the first guide coat is sanded.....
This thread gets me back to the good old days before "guide coats." Back in the day we just used our hands. Walk into any bodyshop and you would see the bodymen with their eyes closed rubbing their hands over their work like the car needed a little loving. Talented hands can do just as good a job as guide coats in my opinion and less time and money is wasted if you are on somebodys clock other than your own. Try this simple test find a flat smooth surface like a table top and have your honey pull out a nice hair just one. Now have her put the hair on the table without you watching. With a minor amount of practice anyone should be able to keep their eyes shut (no cheating) and find that one hair with just their fingertips sliding over the surface. That shows just how sensitive to variations in surfaces fingertips really are. And you get even more sensitive after your fingertips are worn smooth after pushing sandpaper for hours.
If you want it really good then a guide coat is the only way to go...both for quality and speed. Time saved amounts to how long it took to grab a can, shake it and spray it on. Not much. You still sand the same way, with the same abrasives. No additional costs at all. With the price of modern paints etc, if you have to redo a single panel on a single car you'll have lost the price of a years worth of guide coat spraybombs. It's a no brainer for me. I guide coat everything! For a guide coat I simply use a dusting of spraybomb flat black. Theres always a can floating around the shop and it costs nothing to apply it so theres no money saved. I've been a bodyman since "Red Tumbler" was the only filler available and I know how to use my hand to feel for waves in panels. I still rub a panel once its sanded...guide coat or not. The sanding of the guide coat helps locate the areas you should rub! Guide coats have saved my ass on many occasions by locating a pinhole or minor ding just to the edge of a repair where you didn't expect it.
I like this stuff, use it for almost all my repair work. If the fill area runs a little deep for my tastes, I throw some kitty hair in the bottom and finish it out with the Evercoat.
I had an 85 year old friend at a very high end private collection a few months ago. My buddy had owned a body shop for over 40 years. I was showing him an unrestored car that I know one fender had been smashed pretty bad and was now perfect, with no visible tool marks or paint cracks. He started running his hands all over the fender "looking" for creases. The car just happened to be worth about a million and a half or two. I got yelled at for him looking so hard.
The evercoat is good stuff! Ive been out of the auto-body profession for a while, but I do remember preferring it. If you can get your hands on the WURTH brand icing, it is FAR better then the actually "Icing" brand stuff. You have to have your filler dead nuts on, because it has little to no build, but works AWESOME. Virtually no pin holes compared to the icing brand stuff. As for skimming a whole car, if you go bare metal it is the only way to go. The last body shop I worked at we did a karma gia. I straighted it out, filled the bad spots, iced the entire car and blocked it. Then we used a high build primer, blocked that and then used a low build primer, and blocked it again. The car came out so straight it was ridiculous. I still swear up and down its the straightest gia in the world! In the end the build wasnt that much with all the product. But by blocking the car so many times, it became very straight. Straighter then it left the factory!
If you use the darker shade of grey primer as you wet sand you can see waves or other variations in the surface just by watching the color of the primer as you sand. The imperfections would end up either lighter or darker than the surrounding area so you know where to concentrate your efforts. The best way I have found to find real small imperfections and pinholes is with paper in one hand wet sand as normal but in your other hand have one of those stuff rubber, real small 2"X3", thin, flexible sanding blocks the paint companys used to give away with their name on it. Wet sand as normal but every once in awhile stop and squeegee off your sanding slime with the rubber block and the panel will dry off real quick but as it's drying any tiny or big imperfections, including pinholes, will flat jump out at you. If you sand correctly using flat practiced hands, or sanding blocks when using dark grey primer the final work will have the same shade of grey everywhere if there are different shades then that is where to look for any problems.
I also vote for straight metal with no filler if you can get to that point. I realize sometimes there are some situations where you just can't get your working surface perfect and the use of some plastic filler is unavoidable but the fad of covering a car in filler just to avoid proper metalwork and sanding is an abomination in my opinion. Even worse is putting plastic filler over smooth or semi smooth surfaces like primer or old paint. Even the king of featheredgers is creating the possibility of encountering problems when you put on a "skim coat" of filler on primer for no particular reason other than cutting priming and sanding time. By the time you get down to microscopic layers of filler on the edges of your skim coat the chances of problems increases exponentially. Problems of the edges crazing, puckering or showing increase ANYTIME you add layers of products applied to the bare metal. If you use a skim coat of filler and any is left on the surface and the car is in an area with hot/cold weather paterns I will bet you a case of cold ones most good bodymen can pick out where the filler is after the paint has been exposed to hot/cold cycles for 6 months or so just by standing back a few feet and looking at it. You don't get that with metal, primer, sealer, paint. The reason is differentiable expansion and contraction rates and surface tension so called tooth. Filler should be applied to GROUND CLEAN metal surfaces like hit it with a 36 disc first and apply from there. The rough surface has tiny hills and valleys where the filler is forced into increasing the surface area the filler comes into contact with giving greater adhesion. Putting it onto a smooth surface there is way less tiny hills and valleys for the filler to be forced into making the possibility of separation much greater so why take the chance when better results can be obtained just by metal work, sanding and primering repeated until smooth.
I didn't see any mention of USC brands other than Allmetal. I've always like "Chromate Lite" for filler. Cheap and easy. In my experience both of the Rage products still pinhole. I guess maybe I'm too picky but even the smallest pinholes piss me off. Pinholes are from excess build. The filler "gasses out" similar to solvent pop on paint that flashes too fast on top. There's times when dollar for dollar it doesn't make sense to keep wacking away on sheetmetal. I will however, stand by my standard of straight sheetmetal instead of fully skinned with filler. It's not as hard or exclusive as it may 1st seem. Do all "metal finished" cars live a filler-free life? Probably not, but they sure last a longer life. I hear that a car I did in 88 was out this weekend and still looked "pretty fresh" according to a seasoned collector. That car is lacquer, metal finished almost in it's entirety, and the filler used was Allmetal where it was needed. I think I used a quart in total on the whole gig. I think these TV shows do a dis-service to the watching enthusiast when they show that practice of frosting the car and leveling it. Wrong. Not in my shops, not my crew. Metal is too much fun to give up. I'm not saying there's none in my shops, sure there is. Just remember that it's a finishing product. It's not a solution, nor should it be an accepted practice. If you know where to look (some of you pros do) you can spot the metalman's work over the drywall guy's work just about anywhere. Yeah, I said it...bondo slingers ought to do drywall instead of cars. What of it?
The Jalopy Journal
