I guess I have to accept that my car will have some body filler on my car. Just sectioned and chopped my car, and almost done with the spot welds on the roof. Getting much better, trying to hammer and dolly between welds, metal is staying flat, but not yet able to grind the welds flat enough to not see the weld. Then I get some hammer marks, some grind marks got a little to deep and couldn't clean up with rolc discs. How many out there are able to **** weld, hammer and dolly so good so you don't have to use filler?
And I thought I wasn't the only one ,My user name was gonna be Johnny Bondo but I opted for carcrazy John .There is nothing wrong with Filler its better than lead,None is the best ,Filler is lighter and adheres better than lead ,I ve heard that many times over from many senior bodymen guru's .Think about it no neutralizing the steel when your done ,Nothing comes back to haunt you later.I think everyone uses filler and the ones that dont are using lead.
all top quality paint jobs have some bondo/ filler underneath them. No one makes the a bare steel body so nice they can just put primer on it and then paint. whether it be a high in showcar or a multimillion dollar ferarri or other exotic. a think layer of skim allows the body to be sanded straight and smooth
Everyone think body filler (bondo) is a curse.. **** that, there isnt nothing wrong with filler, and i bet there isn't a single hot rod, custom, restoration that doesnt have some filler in it
Bondo and Paint, make a car what it ain't!! Besides, underneath all the glitziest and glamorous paint of the show cars of the 50s and and 60s, they are nothing more than ugly women covered with playdough...
There are some down right amazing metal men here on the HAMB and evey time I see one of their tech threads, it both depresses and inspires me. I know that I'm never gonna reach that point of perfection, but it inspires me to get a little closer, which means less bondo. But, I've stripped old cars where bondo was way thicker than I'd ever think of applying it, and after all those years, it showed no sign of failure, so bondo used sparingly can't be bad at all in my opinion. Hell, watch the tv shows like Chip Foose and others, they cover the whole car.
I read somewhere years ago that Harry Westergard could do it, (metal-finish) but **** Bertolucci used to get mad at him, 'cause it took so much time! LOL.
Amen to that! When I was doing the bodywork on my car, try as I might I couldn't get it perfect and had to use a slight amount of filler to level out my bodywork. I felt guilty, like I'd compromised my project. Then a few months later I was at a local shop and not only did they absolutely coat the car in bondo, they did it over rust! I felt alot better about my amateur bodywork after that day.
Nothing wrong with bondo as long as its used right. An old body man I know says "if it aint got it its gonna get it"
I have a bone stock model a coupe that has no body damage, two little dings in the p***enger front fender but to get a beautiful black paint job on it would mean some filler to make it perfect, and it is jsut how it rolled out of the factory now so they were not perfect when they were new. Close but not superb.
People that will tell you not to use Bondo, or that Bondo is a cheap fix, have never done body work! Period!
most customs wouldn't exist without "bondo"! the metal guys i have spoken to tried using lead for the challenge and on any jobs lost their ***es in time.
you are absolutley right.... i hear all the storeis of perfect metal work, and no filler chops,etc, and the truth is that they dont exists. all, have filler. it isnt really even the thickness that is important(filler), its how you mix and apply, preperation, etc that makes or brakes the job. and whether or not the metal is strong underneth the repairs. you cant use bondo for structual repair, though i see it done all the time also bondo is mor durable than lead in most cases. lead looks better before primeing, but is basically solder. i have seen alot of surprised owners who thought they had no filler on their cars till they get hit. skull
I took a cl*** from this old Timer, who favored new fillers, but got talked into showing us lead. After a half hour of acid, then tinning, He's heating up the patched quarter panel...BUNK... The heat warped the metal. "That **** used to happen in the fifties, too" He said."thats ONE of the reasons We stopped using it." In my travels, I've noticed most of the old guys who know lead, don't do lead.
I think it's a matter of being realistic. If you are doing body work for a living as a restoration shop or as a kustomizer, there are very few customers who are willing to pay for a metal finished body. Most expect to have some filler in their build. How much is acceptable is the question. When you see an example on TV and they have spread filler over the entire panel, most people who aren't familiar with this method freak out! Calm down, they aren't going to leave it like that! By the time the filler is sanded and ready to prime, you can literally see through most of it. It's those small undulations that would show up in a high gloss paint job that they are taking care of. The same smooth surface can be accomplished using hi-build catalysed primer instead of 'bondo'. However, anybody who has priced the difference in materials will tell you which one makes more sense, it's the bondo at $20-$40 a gallon vs catalysed primer at $200+ a gallon! You use them the same way, as a leveling agent. Most of the material is sanded off during the wet-blocking process. For myself, I prefer a seal coat of epoxy primer over all bare metal surfaces before applying any filler, this is after all metalwork has been completed and the surface has been prepped by sanding, wirebrushing or striper-wheel'd. As to leading, properly prepared/executed leadwork is a thing of beauty. There are no adhesion problems with lead if it's cleaned and tinned right. As long as the acid is carefully neutralized after the leadwork is done there are no paint problems either. What a lot of people don't realise is most shops that use lead still have to use some form of 'leveling agent' to attain that smooth surface everybody wants. They only have two choices, hi-build primer or some type of filler! It's again, just a matter of how much is acceptable. That level of acceptability depends on: 1) the project involved. 2) The skills, tools and experience of the person making the repairs. 3) Budget and time constraints. Lets face it, some projects aren't worth an extreme effort! You can't polish a turd! Determine an acceptable level of workmanship and stick to it. If you allow yourself to start metalfinishing every thing on your project, will it ever get done?! Not everybody on this forum is capable of doing metalfinish work. Given enough time most could learn to do this, but is that needed? Most should just try to do the best metalwork they can, then add as little filler as is needed to bring the finished panel to a paintable state. Primer/flattened paint hides a lot of sin! If that is the type of finish you find acceptable, no need to get real crazy with your bodywork! It won't show. Last but certainly not least, a show car finish costs a lot of time/money. How much have you got to spend?! It's all about compromise. Dan Stevens dba, Steelsmith
If you have the car/truck as close to perfect as you can get it I don't see the issue with using filler to make it perfect. It's when filler is used to get the shape instead of doing the body work right that gives the stuff a bad name. I'm guilty of the latter on my truck in a couple of spots. When I frenched the headlights I didn't know how to work sheet metal well enough to make the little filler panels that it needs and there is way too much bondo in that area. That will be corrected now that I know what needs to be done. I do have a bit over 30 years of learning and figuring things out though an I am a bit more patient now than I was then. But I have learned more about doing metal work here on the HAMB in three years than I did in the 40 previous years of banging on metal on my projects. That's the great thing about this board, it pushes a lot of us to improve our skills and then take the time to do things right.
Dan said it very well. It is possible to metal-finish almost anything despite what has been said in this thread to the contrary, but the time involved is more than most people can afford. There is nothing wrong with using filler, but if you want to learn metal-finishing, your tools have to be smooth, and your techniques polished : ) Marks from hammering and grinding make metal finishing much harder than necessary. You can do perfect metal work if you have the desire and patience. It is not a myth. Steel can be worked by stretching, shrinking, bending and planishing, and still be polished to a mirror like surface if you want to go that far. You may have to scuff it to get the primer to stick : ) Most people get frustrated by their early attempts to metal-finish because they expect perfect results if they just follow directions. It is far more than that. You must be prepared to repeat the procedures many times until the metal is perfect. This takes an understanding that the metal will forgive almost any abuse as long as the surface is not scarred or nicked by your tools. Even then, you can weld the damage and go on. A good hammer or ******* and a shrinking disc are the most important tools. Wray Schelin makes a nice shrinking disc: wesparts@charter.net. The best way to learn is on some s****. Make a dent and fix it about 10 times in the same spot to prove to yourself that the metal is not harmed. I show these techniques in my videos below. John www.ghiaspecialties.com
There's this guy on here, I think his name is Cole, does stuff like this Pretty damn close to perfect and will take the minimal amount of filler if any. Hell I bet it could've been painted with just a little high build. ^x2
Years ago as my friend and I were laboriously trying to smooth out a 38 Chevy coupe decklid one dink at a time, our bodyman friend dropped by and stopped us. He grabbed the grinder, ran it over the lid removing most of our our "amateur" work. Mixed a whole bunch of bondo, spread it over the entire lid and waited while it kicked off. He then did a quick cheese grater job and finsihed up with the grinder. The entire garage was covered in bondo dust and shavings . After we blocked and sanded the lid probably 5% of the filler put on the lid remained but it was smooth as a baby's behind. Don't sweat the small stuff. If you do your own work to the best of your ability be happy! It is after all your own work. Every time you build a car it will be easier and better than the one before, same applies to renew jobs on a long term keeper.
Cole is about the best there is, and that car took him YEARS to build! And it's a radical custom '36 3-window, which is one of the few cars that is worth that kind of effort. You probably wouldn't expend that kind of effort with a '51 Plymouth 4dr... My dad works at a high-end restoration shop, and you wouldn't believe some of the stuff that rolls in there needing a "real" restoration done after some other shop butchered it. Just like what you guys are finding on your '49 Fords, there are T-shirts and newspapers crammed into the rockers of Ferraris and muscle cars. The cars that they paint all use small amounts of filler, but they also expend a lot of effort on metalwork. At the end of the day it comes down to what the customer will pay for.
"Hi, my name is Brian and I'm a bondoholic." All - "Hi Brian" "I know I have a problem and I admit it. I have used bondo to repair holes in sheetmetal. I have used bondo thicker than 1/4". I have used bondo in ways that bondo was never meant to be. But I know I am stronger than that. It has been six months since my last bondo hit...."
Cole also built that car for Kirk Hammet who has enough money for perfection. Most of us on here, I could be wrong, will never have the money for bodywork like that.
Most of the builds I see on TV use plastic filler over every square inch of the car! They would always trowel on filler over the entire freekin car! They used so much there should be a spray system for bondo where you can apply it like a 1/4" thick primer or something? NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT!. As long as it's used properly, I mean, WTF? -90% Jimmy
Iv ground through literally 3 inches of bondo, and it was just as strong as when it was applied back in the 80s. Less is more though. You should, at most, just need a skim coat.
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