Days 10, 11, and 12 - Bondo / sand / Bondo / sand

(Originally posted on July 22nd, 2013)

Haven't posted for a few, so here's the current progress!  I spent a couple days learning how to mix and apply Bondo.

I Bondo'ed one side of the skirt, let it cure overnight, turned it over and Bondo'ed the other side, let that cure the next night, and had some self-congratulatory wine.  There is a bit of an art to it, but because things start to cure so fast with Bondo, I found that I had to be pretty aggressive and confident with my application of it.

On the third day of this process, I sanded it all down.  I decided to try 120-grit orbital sander pads, and they worked a treat!  They did indeed get clogged after about 1.5 skirt-sides (resulting in me going through about 6 or 7 pads for all 11 seams), but I was very pleased with the smoothness, and how it feathered into the substrate HDF.

Using the orbital sander reminded me a bit of painting a picture—sometimes I would use the flat side of the sander to take a large portion of the roughness off, sometimes I would use the very edge of the pad to help feather in a bit or to take a pockmark out.  Then another flat pass over it all to make it uniform.  I know I spent a few hours on that, but it was kinda fun and the time passed quickly.  Earplugs help.

Pro tip:
(I think I'll use metal putty knives next time, since rinsing the Bondo resin off of the plastic ones with acetone kinda makes them melt!)   ;)

One disheartening thing I discovered afterward, however, was when I set the skirt on the floor and took a walk-about around it to admire my handiwork ... I noticed that the whole skirt is not sitting flush on the floor.  The sides of the skirt are flat, but the front and back lift up a few millimeters.  I'm not quite sure at this point how I'm going to tackle that.  I'm visualizing a gigantic belt sander that's 4 feet across, and a crane slowly lowering the skirt onto it.  Maybe when I clamp it onto the eventual fender base, it will be fine, but it's so reinforced with fiberglass, resin, and Bondo that I don't know.

Later, while wandering around Lowe's to see if I could find another way for them to take my money, I started researching PVA sealant options.  From what I could tell, PVA is used in both wood glue and latex primers.  I saw that Titebond III is a wood glue rated for extreme weather conditions, so I was tempted to pick that up.  However, I've heard that it's a chore to dilute with water, so I'm wondering if members here have just applied their PVA directly to the substrate without dilution and then sanded it.

Not having enough data, I wandered out of Lowe's the way I came in: empty-handed.

After getting home, I applied a second smear of Bondo to a few areas that needed some minor touch up.  I'm tickled pink (with Bondo, heh) that it's turned out as well as it has.

I also just placed an order for a 2' x 7' length of black Heronair from a company in the US called Plastex Matting.  This will be for the interior of the neck bin.

For that length and color, they charged $42.00.  Since it's coming in from Alabama, and I'm all the way in the opposite corner of the US in Washington state, the shipping came to ~$22.00.  But, that beats the Home Depot price of $207.00 for a 3' x 10' length!  They are shipping it out today!

For the next step on the skirt, I decided to focus on hemis.  I didn't want to pay over $60 for the ones available on Amazon (3 packs of 12 balls, plus shipping).  Instead, inspired by whitelight's How To Make Vinyl Hemispheres post (specifically, hardgrave's comment), I went to Lowe's to get a couple of hole cutter bits, one 4" (~101mm) and one 5" (127mm).  To my distress, those cutting bits are EXPENSIVE.  The 5" alone was $42.00.  All-in-all, the two bits and the arbor would have launched my "money-saving" technique well past the Amazon hemisphere option.

So, guess what I did—I went with Amazon.  Placed the order last night.  This actually depressed me a slight amount, because I wanted to hand-craft as much of this guy as I could.  Ah, well.  Maybe if I get ambitious down the line I'll recreate the hemis.