[jcarter]

Is a product like POR15's Marine Clean a good enough degreaser to wipe down an area before putting bondo on?Will paint reducers or varsol work as well?I am going with the filler under the epoxy,right or wrong, on my fenders.After filling and sanding,should it be wiped down again with a degreaser before the epoxy, or could that hurt the filler?The fenders and eventually the rest of the car will probably sit with the epoxy on it for a year or so, while the rest of the car is built.Latter I plan to go over everything again with a high build primer and block sand to get the body straighter. Is 180 course enough to get the high build to stick to the "cured" epoxy when I get to that point? Thanks,Jim

 

[MARTINSR]

There is no reason to degrease before filler, if anything you would degrease BEFORE you grind the paint off the metal where you are planning on applying filler.

You do not want to degrease filler, it is too absorbant and will suck up the degreaser. Of course if you were to KNOW that some contaminant had gotten on the sanded filler you would have to, but you would need to wait many hours after wiping it to be sure all solvents evaporated off.

Filler on bare metal or epoxy on bare metal with filler over it are both widely accepted and recommended by many manufactures of these products. I have always applied the filler over bare metal and still do everyday in regular collision repair. But for my next restoration project I am leaning toward epoxy first.

Sanding your epoxy with 180 prior to a urethane primer is ok.

 

[jcarter]

Thanks for the reply.I respect the knowledge that you and Barryk and others have shared on this board.My concern for degreasing was because these old fenders have sat half stripped to bare metal for a few months and I had used some aircraft stripper on them and was worried about some of that still dried on even after sanding to bare metal.After the filler was preped for epoxy, I was concerned about sweat or oil on hands being a problem for good adhesion.Also to reconfirm what I've read before, epoxy primer is not an isocynate, so is "safer" to spray with poorer masks? Thanks Jim

 

[julmer]

Disposable rubber gloves are a good idea for both your hands and the surface you are working on.