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That fender I botched at a shop in Tulsa made me rethink filler vs metal finish | Auto Body Repairers - Librear

That fender I botched at a shop in Tulsa made me rethink filler vs metal finish

Guy next to me swears by metal finishing everything no filler ever. But on a flat rate job that's impossible. Which way do you lean when the clock's ticking?

2 comments

2 Comments

thea6924mo ago

Metal finish purists have never worked a real production job, I swear. In a flat rate shop you'd go broke trying to fully metal finish a modern hood with all those compound curves. Filler gets a bad rap from hacks who pile it on an inch thick, but used thin on a proper repair it's just as strong and way faster. Plus with today's epoxy primers sealing everything right, you're not getting moisture issues like the old days. Your buddy can keep his hammer and dolly collection, I'll take the extra $200 in my pocket at the end of the week.

elliot_allen654mo ago

Actually, about the epoxy primer thing - you gotta be careful there. Modern epoxies are miles better than the old stuff, sure, but they're not a magic moisture barrier if you've got thin filler over bare metal. I've seen guys slap on a skim coat of filler right over bare steel with epoxy on top, and it's fine for a while, then it starts bleeding through the paint a year later (little brown spots, you know the ones). The real trick is you still want to at least hit the bare metal with a self-etching primer or a proper metal prep before the filler, even if it's a super thin layer, just to kill any chemical reaction. Epoxy over filler that's on bare metal can trap microscopic moisture from the filler's curing process, and that's where the problems start in humid climates. So yeah, filler is totally fine for production work, but skip the metal prep step and you're gambling on that $200 holding up long term.