When I do restoration work I frequently have places I need to fill in before glueing down new veneer. Ideally I try and glue down a patch of real wood and remill it. I’m familiar with Bondo but will most wood glues and or contact cement stick to it without future problems?? Or is there another putty or filler I should use instead??
thanks!!!
Replies
I've had no problem using contact cement over bondo. There are better brands out there, I can't recall their name, but I think Evergreen? is one of the better ones to use, try your commercial paint dealer or a good auto parts store.
I've had Durham's Rock Hard powder filler recommended to me for filling under veneer. Used it several times without any apparent problems.
I have used Bondo under plastic laminates and I always use contact cement for that. If the Bondo isn't too smooth, yellow glue should stick to that, too.
I use bondo under laminate all the time. Not only is it tenacious in it's grab, but in the semicured state (if ya cannot wait a half hour) it is parable with chisel or plane. Cured, it sands well.
Only recently have I become aware of an alternative to the bondo "red" and that was a product called "white lightning" which drys up off white. A tad more expensive and not as common in the marketplace. That might be a benifet on a birch, maple or light coloured veneer where the red of the bondo may show through.
Heck, I've even used in in a pinch as a ceramic tile adherent, and more than once.
Where else do I use it that you might find useful....making custom sanding blocks to finish profiles. I ain't found the utility for sanding detailed profiles, but broader stuff like radiused mouldings, crown mouldings, I've just overlaid the pattern with saran warp and slathered on a glob of bondo. When it hardens, you got yerself a sanding block which matches yer profile as close as anyone could expect. Somewhere I even saw that there are ways to attach blocks in the bondo so that you can use these custom made things in a profile sander.
For me it is a necessity, common shop stock. I cannot afford to wait three or four hours for some water based stuff to set up only to find it has shrunk enuf that it needs another coat. With Bondo, it's mere minutes
You is almost certainly OK to continue using the stuff- it's on a gadzillion cars and ain't exactly falling off; and besides which, it looks suspiciously like some of the patches I see in fir plywood. Maybe try to find the whiter stuff if ya want, but if the colour was a problem, I woulda thought you would know it by now.
Eric in Cowtown.
Thanks for all the replies, I will continue using it without fear.....!
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