bondo

(quoted from post at 18:35:23 03/05/23) What do you guys think about using bondo or body puddy on tractors. I dont like using it try to get the dents as smooth as possible with out adding bondo

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(quoted from post at 06:14:09 03/06/23) Yup, that's the best way to go about it. But if you want absolutely perfect lines it's hard to avoid a little bondo. I prefer a few minor imperfections and no bondo, but that's just me. No matter what, your bondo coat should never be more than 1/8'' thick at most.

One thing that's changed in recent years is the order of operations for body filler/primer. 20+ years ago, when all body filler was the rust-coloured crap and primer was the red oxide junk, body filler would only stick to perfectly clean bare metal. It caused issues after a few years, as the metal would expand/contract/flex, and the bondo would start to separate. Water would wick its way between the bondo and bare steel, and start to rust. The rust would cause the bondo to separate more, which allowed more water in, causing more rust, etc. etc.

These days it seems all the pro body shops put a coat of high-quality epoxy primer over the bare steel to seal it up, then put body filler over that. The new fillers stick to the primer well (I'm told they stick better to the epoxy primer than to bare steel), and that way it's far less susceptible to rust/separation.

It feels like heresy to those of us who learned to stick body filler on nothing but perfectly clean, bare steel, but apparently it's the way to go.

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