I was supposed to be posting on plaster textures this week but something happened this week that got me so riled up that I had to delay the plaster post.
[Stands on Soapbox]
Bondo.
Bondo is a great product for patching damage to cars, but somewhere, sometime in the past, some painter or carpenter decided that it would work just as well on wood. Let me be clear…Don’t patch wood with Bondo!
I could end this post there, but then I’d be asking you to believe me blindly and like most people, I prefer to see some evidence before I’m going to accept new information as fact.
Here’s the deal: auto body filler was designed to fill holes in a steel car chassis not wood. That’s what wood filler was designed for. These are two very different materials and they require two very different types of filler.
If you want to read all about what types of wood fillers I recommend, read my post The 7 Best Products to Patch Wood.
The Problem With Bondo
Like I mentioned before, auto body filler is meant to behave much the same way as the metal chassis it is used to repair. Car bodies are very rigid structures that don’t have much, if any, expansion and contraction due to weather conditions. Accordingly, Bondo is a very stiff product when cured, which makes it well designed for auto bodies.
That same rigidity makes it a terrible choice to fill wood, which can move a lot with seasonal changes due to temperature and moisture content. To fill wood, you need a product that is specifically designed to bend and flex the way wood does.
Just like caulk is too flexible to effectively fill large gaps in wood, Bondo is too stiff to do the same.
When Bondo (or any auto body filler) is used to patch wood, it fails in a very short time. It may take a couple of years at the longest or in the worst case scenarios, I have seen it fail in a matter of weeks.
The Science of Wood Movement
If you’re interested in knowing the science behind what happens, I’ll lay it out very simply here. If that sounds boring, then skip to the next section.
Wood naturally expands, contracts, and moves depending on the weather because all those cells that used to move water up and down the trunk still remember how to do their job. When water is introduced, be it rain, dew, or humidity, the cells in the wood absorb the moisture and begin to transport it through the rest of the wood just like when the tree was alive.
The addition of moisture causes the wood to swell, twist, warp and lots of other things that you don’t want to happen.
Similarly, when conditions are cold and dry, the wood fibers contract due to the lack of moisture. This same reaction is what causes your doors to stick in the summer and have big gaps in the winter.
How Does Bondo Fail?
So, we’ve established that wood moves but Bondo does not, right? Ultimately, these two products are too dissimilar to stay bonded together for any length of time.
As the wood swells and contracts, swells and contracts over the course of weeks and months, the Bondo is gradually shaken loose and pushed out of the wood.
I’ve seen examples of Bondo pushed clear off of a window sill and laying on the ground. It doesn’t take long before at least small cracks open up and water gets trapped in the crevices.
Another thing that can push Bondo out of the wood is called vapor drive. Moisture inside the house will naturally migrate to the outside. This moisture will move through the back side of the wood and come up against the Bondo which is not vapor permeable. It will then exert pressure on the Bondo on its way out of the building.
This same thing happens to paint when there is a moisture problem. You will find paint peeling down to bare wood in these areas. Vapor drive is a powerful force.
You wouldn’t patch wood with cement would you? Most people would think that’s an absurd idea, but auto body filler is much the same when it comes to wood.
I hope that helps you understand and avoid using Bondo to patch wood. Even if your painter thinks it’s a great idea and says he uses it all the time, steer clear. It’s only a matter of time before it fails.
If you need to repair wood, my post Rotted Wood Repair will show you the proper materials and techniques to get the job done right the first time.
Also check out this short video by fellow restorer Steve Quillian showing a Bondo patch job on some windows after just a few years.
Founder & Editor-in-Chief
I love old houses, working with my hands, and teaching others the excitment of doing it yourself! Everything is teachable if you only give it the chance.
Bondo is a junk product. In my experience, it doesn’t matter how well you mix it, how perfect the temperature is or anything like that. It just does not work. It crumbles or stays soft or cracks. It’s more of a pain in the neck to clear up the Bondo mess than to repair things the right way. It’s a cheap gimmick that scammy car salesmen will use to make a car look phenomenal – a quick splodge of Bondo in a dent, sand it down, spray it the same color and hope nobody notices until after money has changed hands. A few weeks later it fails but the sucker has bought the car.
I repaired an exterior windowsill on my garage about 10 years ago and it is still rock solid. I have painted it a couple of times since I did the job since my garage also needed to be painted. I also used it (although somewhat sparingly) on the service door to my garage and have yet to experience any problems. I did both repairs with the automotive Bondo as I did not know at the time that a wood version existed. I live in the Chicago area. Temperatures fluctuate from below zero to 98 degrees. I found the stuff a little messy to work with, but I also have little occasion to need to. I disagree with the author.
If you think that temperature causes wood to contract and expand more than it does steel or aluminum, you need to take a refresher course in physics. And I would need to see your data on how much interior painted or polyurethaned wood trim expands or contracts due to temperature or humidity levels before I can accept that as a fact. I’m guessing you must have performed some extensive research before posting your bold claim advising that Bondo is “never” to be used to repair wood.
Did you do that research? Can you tell us exactly what your research revealed?
Hello,
I would like to see if you can please assist me in my question regarding wood repair. I had a handyman repair a horizontal crack in my facia board. The repair was done about a year ago and is now cracking. My questions is what material should I use to repair a large previously repaired bondo area so that the material sticks to the bondo?
Thank you for your attention in this question
Your criticism of Bondo is very unfair and I am embarrassed for you. Your non-Bondo solution to wood rot is TWO Abatron products, which I have used. You state that Abatron’s WoodEpox is a structural epoxy. When fully cured, WoodEpox has got to be as hard as Bondo or even more so. I don’t believe Bondo is advertised as a structural epoxy. Do you have any durometer readings on Bondo and WoodEpox to make a scientific claim about hardness? So you compare Bondo used by itself against both WoodEpox and LiquidWood used in a two-stage process? What is fair about that? Why not make a fair comparison using Bondo as stage 2 after using LiquidWood as stage 1?
I had a couple of rotted edges of boards on my front porch that I repaired years ago, and they’re still good.
Hi there….I have been all over the internet looking for a solution to remove bondo from wood. I recently did some renovations to my condo and my contractor got lazy and used bondo on my door trim and moldings to patch nail holes. Needless to say it looks terrible since he didn’t even attempt smooth it out nicely! My question is, should I try to remove it? Or just replace the moldings? I really wasn’t looking forward to sanding it and creating a huge mess! Any ideas? Thank you and I appreciate any help!
Bondo is excellent on wood. It’s even used on wood boats. It adheres well to dry wood and if done right will not telegraph the joint through paint. You need to taper the surface so the end of the filled area ends up as a feather edge. For example; if you were filling a knot hole, use a chisel to taper the adjoining wood to the hole.
My complaint against Bondo is the plastic cap over the can. Removing it is an accident waiting to happen. Otherwise, great product.
This article is irrelevant because Bondo has a specific wood filler product. It’s much stronger than other wood fillers and works great for repairs or patching.
I have used that somewhat overpriced Elmer’s 2-part epoxy stuff where I had to knead together the dough and the hardener. I know enough to cut out the rot down to clear wood and treat it with a hardener first. That epoxy filler is crap, does not bond well, does not move with the wood. On several casement window corners, I opted to carve out the bad sections and form new corner pieces out of fresh poplar. Maybe not the “experts” best choice, but a damn sight cheaper than the cost off a new 6′ x 6′ casement window. I have also used wood hardener and bondo very successfully on several other wood repairs. I think this thread was started by someone who feels threatened by the fact that a competent homeowner can do good jobs on his own.
The right prep and based conditions needs to be met.
The “Bondo is not the right answer picture post ” was done on wet damp conditions.
Nothing will work under those conditions except wet-based fillers and not until it is prep’d. properly. The five minute experts needs to step 5 feet back and think it over and ask 5 easy questions.
Repaired bottoms of rotted door frame with bondo about ten years ago. Has been exposed to winter and summer weather every year. Just now, paint is starting to crack in some places. No separation where wood and bondo meet. It’s a great wood filler. Put wax paper over the top of it, and press a door hinge into it for a perfect fit. Wax paper peels right off.