Best way to repair dozens of small dings in door
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[quote=”ryanbrown999″ post=17811][quote=”nick@dunsdale” post=17808][quote]Do not make the bodyfiller more then an 1/8[/quote]
I am all ears and interested
what happens after 1/8…. 3/16 or 1/4 what will will/could happen on repairs of this depth[/quote]
nothing 😉
I would venture to say it is almost impossible to repair a stretched panel without going over 1/8 somewhere.[/quote]
[quote]nothing 😉 [/quote]
I have to agree i have never ever had any filler job’s crack on me. and i see many vehicles return over the years for others repairs and there has been no repair failure.
Hell in 1997 i bought myself a small panel van that had been rolled it was almost new, and as i was keeping it for myself i put a roof skin on it and repaired every other panel on the vehicle, i remember i actually counted the repairs there was around 30 repairs was rubbing it forever some of them would have exceeded 1/8 😉 .
I kept that van for eight years and never saw any filler failure and there was a lot of filler on it
I always keep my filler as thin as possible, but I’ve seen really old
panels with filler over 1″ thick and not cracked or shrunk.
Makes me wonder.:unsure:I try to keep my filler work less than 1/32″ thick. :pcorn:
4 gallon Bondo should be able to chime in and the durability of thick filler :whistle:
I remember on a specific Suby Quarter that had at least 3/4 to an inch deep on it that Bondo kept having crack. Unfortunately it kept cracking at the thinnest feather edge of it. Bondo came up with an easy solution for that, by throwing it on thicker in those areas. :rofl
It seems we all have an opinion. Personally I’ll try to keep my filler as thin as possible, but if it needs to be more than 1/8″ thick, then so be it, and I have never had any filler jobs returned to me for cracking.
But then I am also quite happy to put a thin skim of filler over paint, providing it is very sound and sanded well, which I know some of you aren’t. I will go to bare metal for a deep fill, but if the manufacturers of the filler I use quote a repair method on their tech sheets which includes filling straight over paint, then who am I to argue 😉
Oh, and none of their tech sheets specify a maximum thickness either…
Some things to consider are the shape/strength of the panel, where it is on the car and the climate.
Here, our weather can be as low as -40 and as warm as 35 (celcius). That is a lot of expansion and contraction of the panel and filler. Steel and filler do not expand and contract at exactly the same rate.
Thin weak panels (such as roofs) probably wouldn’t hold up too well with thick filler on them as they flex. Also consider vibrations through the panel.
Lastly, think about filling a hood. Hoods are thin and weak (lots of flexing) and some can get very warm from the engine. I am sure thick filler could be problematic.
I have seen lots of vehicles with cracked filler come into the shop and on the street. And often it isn’t much thicker than 1/4″. Obviously most people are good enough not to put it on any thicker than necessary, but the goal should still be to try to keep it as thin as possible.
well ive seen a 4 gallon smear on a ext chevy cab crack so i musta been pushing here a lil on the depth side on the other hand wasnt really that thick but was pretty much a 4 gallon roofskin in a can thing back when i used ta work for someone else…..the mud was the new z grip back in the early 90s ended up doing a roof skin for the guy yrs later at my shop funney thing was the owner only came ta me cuz my former boss closed his shop after i quit working for him otherwise my old boss woulda had ta redo it a 3rd time some of the stuff that guy had me fix was just insane:wak :wak
yrs back i did 2 gallons of mud on the rear qtr of my 81 rx7 an it never did crack on the other hand go figure :dnc :dnc
i dont think its so much so the thickness of the filler but more of what its applied to. most of the cabs i get in here have filler cracking because its apllied over painted surfaces like low spots that the grinder didnt reach into.
[quote=”nick@dunsdale” post=17812][quote=”bodymanhelper” post=17809]It you over an 1/8″ the bodyfiller can crack[/quote]
Is there any documentation from company’s that sell filler, that state this in their data sheets.[/quote]
probably somewhere, but I haven’t seen it.
It really depends on where it’s going. if it’s at a point on a vehicle where the body has a little more natural stretch you might have an issue within a month at 1/8″. if it’s a nice strong corner that you can’t pull out very well it could be fine for years with 1/4″ of filller.
I have seen some guys do quick and dirty jobs for years piling on 1/4″ of kitty hair in rough stuff and only have a rare failure….. not that I’d recommend it.
it is common to see guys slather on the kitty hair or duraglass in door jambs and whatnot where there are seams and spot welds and whatnot to flatten all that stuff out, but I really don’t like the idea of using reinforced filler on the outer sheetmetal. especially on a large flat area of thin steel.
think my helper just put 1/2inch of short strand in a tailgate. but only had a skim coat of bondo on top :whistle:
[quote=”bondomerchant” post=17828]well ive seen a 4 gallon smear on a ext chevy cab crack so i musta been pushing here a lil on the depth side on the other hand wasnt really that thick but was pretty much a 4 gallon roofskin in a can thing back when i used ta work for someone else…..the mud was the new z grip back in the early 90s ended up doing a roof skin for the guy yrs later at my shop funney thing was the owner only came ta me cuz my former boss closed his shop after i quit working for him otherwise my old boss woulda had ta redo it a 3rd time some of the stuff that guy had me fix was just insane:wak :wak[/quote]
awesome.
I had a buddy in high school that rolled his little toyota and mudded the thing back into shape. his roof was so crinkled it was ridiculous, and he dumped I don’t know how many gallons of mud on it….. he drove into school one day with that roof in primer and I though he welded a new skin on! he blocked it out incredibly well.
that cab was scrapped a few months later….
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