Alternatives To Bondo? Request, Not A Find.

Hey all, I posed this question in my own thread but unfortunately it hasn't garnered much attention haha. Well in any case, sorry for making a topic just for this but Halo-ween is fast approaching and I would need an answer to this question in order to continue my work.



For those who are unable to work with the toxic fumes that are involved with resin, there is an alternative: Aquaresin. This essentially allows you to work indoors and keep much better control over the temperatures that you're working at. That's all fine and dandy, but is there an alternative for bondo body filler? It would have to have the same qualities as Aquaresin in that the fumes are non-toxic, up here in Canada it's already way too cold for resin or bondo to cure properly. Does anyone know of any non-toxic alternatives to bondo?



Thanks in advance guys!

jareyes said:

Hey all, I posed this question in my own thread but unfortunately it hasn't garnered much attention haha. Well in any case, sorry for making a topic just for this but Halo-ween is fast approaching and I would need an answer to this question in order to continue my work.



For those who are unable to work with the toxic fumes that are involved with resin, there is an alternative: Aquaresin. This essentially allows you to work indoors and keep much better control over the temperatures that you're working at. That's all fine and dandy, but is there an alternative for bondo body filler? It would have to have the same qualities as Aquaresin in that the fumes are non-toxic, up here in Canada it's already way too cold for resin or bondo to cure properly. Does anyone know of any non-toxic alternatives to bondo?



Thanks in advance guys!

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I'm glad you posted this! I was wondering the same thing. Cause as of right now I'm building a plywood box with heaters installed in it. Its my "curing box". haha 30 degree weather drives you to do crazy things....



-Loki

Haha, well let's hope someone has an answer for us. I don't think even if I were to build a plywood box with heaters installed that it would be able to fight off the -22 fahrenheit temperatures I'm expecting this winter. Winter sucks! except for Christmas, only because there is the possibility of more money to contribute to armour making

If you find the right 2 part epoxy resin it will have very low fumes (I can't detect them and google and other places tell me what little fumes they have are relatively harmless as long as you aren't bathing in them). Mixing this with a proper filler (microspheres, milled fibers, talc powder etc) make a sandable, moldable, bondolike substance. The cure time is a decently long time. It WILL cure down to something ridiculous like 37F though (ridiculous compared to polyester resin).



It is more expensive than polyester resin, but its a lot easier to work with (still wear a respirator even if you cannot detect fumes).



Another alternative that I did last year was make a positive pressure room in your house. Cover floors, walls and ceiling with plastic, seal it up good with tape, put a large fan in the hall pushing air into the room and a large fan in the window pushing air out of the house. The fumes shouldn't ever make it into the rest of the house (other than what you bring with you on your clothes).

jareyes said:

Haha, well let's hope someone has an answer for us. I don't think even if I were to build a plywood box with heaters installed that it would be able to fight off the -22 fahrenheit temperatures I'm expecting this winter. Winter sucks! except for Christmas, only because there is the possibility of more money to contribute to armour making

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Yeah hopefully. I have been trying to find some stuff online but so far..all I keep finding is Aquaresin. So I dunno! And yeah -22 is pretty chilly my friend...hah we dont get that cold here luckily... Its working so far for me...but its a slow process. OH and when you open the box...you have to have a mask on..cause it hits like a train bwuahah



-Loki

tiredofbuttons said:

If you find the right 2 part epoxy resin it will have very low fumes (I can't detect them and google and other places tell me what little fumes they have are relatively harmless as long as you aren't bathing in them). Mixing this with a proper filler (microspheres, milled fibers, talc powder etc) make a sandable, moldable, bondolike substance. The cure time is a decently long time. It WILL cure down to something ridiculous like 37F though (ridiculous compared to polyester resin).



It is more expensive than polyester resin, but its a lot easier to work with (still wear a respirator even if you cannot detect fumes).



Another alternative that I did last year was make a positive pressure room in your house. Cover floors, walls and ceiling with plastic, seal it up good with tape, put a large fan in the hall pushing air into the room and a large fan in the window pushing air out of the house. The fumes shouldn't ever make it into the rest of the house (other than what you bring with you on your clothes).

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I like, I like. The two part epoxy resin sounds like a great idea, but to be honest I just really don't have any experience with that type of work. Also, the cost would factor in greatly (being that tubs of bondo here are like $10CDN, given I know that's a pretty fantastic price for any body filler). It is still a good (and original!) idea though, I will definitely keep it in mind when I've got a little more time and a little more cash on hand.



As for the positive pressure room, that is also incredibly original and it sounds good. However, I don't have enough space in my house for me to keep something like that up permanently or even semi-permanently. Furthermore, taping it up and then tearing it down after every work session would be terrible =\ haha. Don't get me wrong though, I love the idea and I'll be sure to try it in the future out of curiosity and for lulz.



Thanks for your suggestions man! Really appreciate it, I'll be writing down these ideas.

Trickster Loki said:

Yeah hopefully. I have been trying to find some stuff online but so far..all I keep finding is Aquaresin. So I dunno! And yeah -22 is pretty chilly my friend...hah we dont get that cold here luckily... Its working so far for me...but its a slow process. OH and when you open the box...you have to have a mask on..cause it hits like a train bwuahah



-Loki

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Haha yeah -22 is how low I think it got last year and given that the summer here only peaked at around 30celsius for a couple of weeks, I'm expecting this winter to hit even harder. And watch out for those fumes! haha, I'm sure there's some added concern just letting all the fumes build up in there.





Also, I have a question to add to the main question/OP:

If there is a non-toxic alternative out there for bondo body filler, does anyone know if it's compatible with aquaresin so that mudglassing/Rondo glassing is possible with the mixture? Thanks!

haha, i live right next door to you, and i know what you mean. canada winters (hell just fall in canada) can be a -blam!-

jareyes said:

Haha, well let's hope someone has an answer for us. I don't think even if I were to build a plywood box with heaters installed that it would be able to fight off the -22 fahrenheit temperatures I'm expecting this winter. Winter sucks! except for Christmas, only because there is the possibility of more money to contribute to armour making

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I feel a bit for you, I already down to 20 F where I live... Brrrrrr.... I think that the box might work alright for me though. We usually only get down to -10 at most. Christmas rocks (plus my B-Day is 2 days before xmas woot!)



The positive pressure room is actually a pretty good idea.... But, i could almost build myself a shack with all the effort involved in the room....









Trickster Loki, on 06 October 2009 - 06:11 PM, said:



Yeah hopefully. I have been trying to find some stuff online but so far..all I keep finding is Aquaresin. So I dunno! And yeah -22 is pretty chilly my friend...hah we dont get that cold here luckily... Its working so far for me...but its a slow process. OH and when you open the box...you have to have a mask on..cause it hits like a train bwuahah



-Loki





Errk.... maybe the box isn't the best idea....





Cheers!

I'm right there with you guys, although it hasn't gotten QUITE that cold here yet. I just started working on resining my helmet last night, and it was around 40F when I started. Ended up putting it in my outdoor storage closet, and today it's still a bit sticky in places (and REEKS of resin). I have no room for a positive pressure environment (one-bedroom apartment), and no space on the balcony for a heater box. I'm just going to have to go out there with the heat gun and manually harden the whole dang thing at this rate.

Well, see the thing is guys, resin is already fine and dandy like I said. That's because we already have the Aquaresin alternative, which is great. don't get me wrong. What I'm troubled about though is if there is an alternative to bondo body filler. I can for sure harden pep pieces and stuff over the Christmas break and whatnot in cold temperatures because I can just bring it indoors to work. But how do I smooth the pieces to sexiness? I haven't a clue my friends, haven't the slightest clue. Damn you toxic bondo. Anyone help please!

im with ya jareyes, about 2 hours s/w of you. but today was a good day for working. im gonna track this. if i hear of anything ill let you know

well you could always use spackle. its the stuff you use to fill holes in walls.



i used it on this helmet although i don't really recommend it. It's kind of fragile but its really easy to sand.









sorry for crappy quality pics...i hate my sidekick

You can use Aquaresin as a body filler as well. Just add less liquid to the powder so it's more of a slurry/paste than the liquid resin form. It's explained by Skullcandy in her Aquaresin thread.



I think it's the simplest way since you can do it all with 1 product and if you already bought Aquaresin, it's more bang for your buck.

LT-GRAVE said:

im with ya jareyes, about 2 hours s/w of you. but today was a good day for working. im gonna track this. if i hear of anything ill let you know

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Haha, good to know I'm not the only armourer who's being hampered by the weather. Not sure how much difference the distance makes, but today the weather here was pretty chilly. You know the drill, better start bundling up haha.

daftndirekt said:

well you could always use spackle. its the stuff you use to fill holes in walls.



i used it on this helmet although i don't really recommend it. It's kind of fragile but its really easy to sand.

sorry for crappy quality pics...i hate my sidekick

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From what I can tell, it looks like it came out pretty good! However, I would probably be attempting to use the bondo alternative at the same time as the resin in order to mudglass the pieces --> faster production. This means that whatever alternative I use has to be just as structurally sound as bondo (even though it's not very structurally sound by itself, combined with fiberglass it is pretty strong). Thanks for the suggestion though! On very fine filling I might choose to use this instead of the spot putty (bad experience with it).

Sigma-LS said:

You can use Aquaresin as a body filler as well. Just add less liquid to the powder so it's more of a slurry/paste than the liquid resin form. It's explained by Skullcandy in her Aquaresin thread.



I think it's the simplest way since you can do it all with 1 product and if you already bought Aquaresin, it's more bang for your buck.

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Now that is a genius solution..didn't even occur to me. I will for sure give this a try as soon as my order of Aquaresin comes in. I guess I missed that tidbit while reading through the thread.. also read it a long time ago.



Now in the case of mudglassing though, would you theoretically mix up a batch of normal Aquaresin, then a batch of thicker "paste" then mix the two together to be poured onto the piece? I understand that for mudglassing you mix the polyester resin with the bondo body filler, but the Aquaresin solution would be using the same substance but just in different ratios? That's kind of where I'm getting confused. Could you clarify a bit as to the specifics of mudglassing with Aquaresin (both regular and paste mixtures)? If it hasn't been done before you could also just tell me that, I guess in that case I'd just have to try it myself .



Thanks a bunch.

I do remember a friend (who repairs boats and has loads of cans of a sprayable resin) had some sort of wet sandable bondo-like stuff they used in combination with this spray on resin. Sadly, I don't know the name of either. I'll check later today, but the stuff is far more expensive than fiberglass resin/bondo. I've used it, and it works well, but if you want to use it you might as well just buy a piece instead of sanding it with this stuff.

ImaGonnaGetYou said:

I do remember a friend (who repairs boats and has loads of cans of a sprayable resin) had some sort of wet sandable bondo-like stuff they used in combination with this spray on resin. Sadly, I don't know the name of either. I'll check later today, but the stuff is far more expensive than fiberglass resin/bondo. I've used it, and it works well, but if you want to use it you might as well just buy a piece instead of sanding it with this stuff.

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Hey, thanks for letting me know about this stuff. As you said though, it's probably not the best alternative for my case because of the cost, although I will look into it just because it sounds awesome. I will also ask around outdoors stores and ask if they have any supplies for boat repairs. Sounds cool!