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I had to get batting, as their thinnest foam was 1/2" and way too thick, at all the fabric stores I went to

But so far the batting is working great.

I'd go with the thin foam...

Hay Joey, they have this 1/8 inch thick white foam at American upholstery that works great for prepping a box for vinyl. It does a great job with imperfections, and is thin enough, and dense enough that it doesn't press in when you vinyl over it

lotas wrote:Foam from a fabric store or something? Where do you get a sheet of foam like that?

yeah probably a fabric store, like maybe something for a quilt. I would suggest some of secondskin's padding they offer. the thinner stuff is closed cell and would probably be forgiving of imperfections

well i don't know what bondo you used(probably evercoat if it was yellow, we don't use cheap bondo for what we do), but the kind jr and them have used for years is blue. the company is dynatron, and any filler made by them is good. the one we use in particular is "puttycote", its a polyester filler. Sands EXTREMELY well, even when cured completely. BUT, the one problem in his situation is that bondo is probably harder than the material it is being applied to. So what happens is that the sand paper actually cuts the surface as much if not more than the bondo. An example is when idiots try to sand the shaft on there pool cues, joe you know what i am talking about, the ferril is much harder than the wood so it causes a dip in the wood just before the ferrill. So you would have to put the sand paper on the end of your finger and grind it down. The absolute best way to do it, as someone mentioned above, is to use a grater. We use it all the time in bondoing wood. The grater when used properly, not hard to do, will not cut the surface, only the bondo...which leaves little sanding to do at all. That particular bondo will stick to 99% of surfaces out there, that is why we use it exclusively.

just my 2 cents :)

You'll have to strip your current upholstery off, fill any crevaces (a plastics filler material like Duramix would be better for plastic panels), and then sand, sand, sand - literally until near-perfect.

Even if you are stretching vinyl over it, it's amazing what imperfections show through vinyl.

Carpet is your most forgiving - carpet covers everything.

joeyc wrote:put a layer of some thin foam over it. then when you stretch the material or vinyl over it, it will compress and cover the imperfections

Foam from a fabric store or something? Where do you get a sheet of foam like that?

Hay Joey, whats that yellow bondo you and JR use. He got me using that stuff when I worked for Fibber and I love it. SOOOOOOOO much easer to work with.

Ryan, you really need to try this stuff. I hated working with bondo till my budies got me hooked on this stuff.

The trick with bondo, is to grate it down while its still semi soft, with a cheese grater type thing made for body work. Get a lot of the big lumps out that way, and use sandpaper once its semi-hard. Dont let it cure fully before trying to sand it.

Edit: I probably wouldnt use bondo in your application tho Lotas. I dont think it'd work too well. I kno the material you are talkin about.

I hate using Bondo...

The shit is ALWAYS ultra hard when I try to sand it... Like it eats sandpaper...

I used Duraglass a few times.. Seems to be better than bondo and a bit cheaper.