It's an opinion based on experience.
That's a big if with a sill - you can only get at a small part of it.
The shed products to do this cost an arm and a leg.
Indeed. It's not a difficult job to change one.
I have been known to set blocks of wood IN the filler..
As is mine..
Wait till midsummer.
Yes. Which is why I generally gougue out the really punky stiff, and use a polyesetr glassing resin.
Can be if it goes into the wall deeply.
Its not a particlarly hard compound. Porous car body filler is a bit of a pain..I suspect you may be thinking of body PUTTY, which is more a soft cellulose based air drying thing.
Even this year?
I'm quite aware of the difference between 'glass fibre' filler and cellulose putty, thanks.
That's an essential preparatory step, IMO, and proprietary 2-part 'wood hardener' products are available for the purpose. Any decorators' merchant will have some.
As to fillers I've been impressed recently with Polycell's 'Wood Repair Pollyfilla' product[*]. It's a 2-part epoxy formulation, sandable but retains some flexibility when cured. Car body fillers tend to set too hard and may crack away from the wood on large repairs, IME.
[*]
Fibreglass resin is cheaper, and essentially the same thing
IME sometimes the surrounding wood dries and shrinks away from the filler after a few months. This is usually a one off event.
It's a lot thicker than the stuff I tried, so would it actually soak into the wood?
depends. It can be thinned as well..not sure what with tho.
It should if warmed a bit with a heat gun at least soak into the surface enough to fully stabilize it: provided the punky stuff is all removed first, then it wont be a bad solution at all.
IME, yes. It soaks into porous wood, partly because it cures more slowly than the resin used in body filler (overnight IIRC)
Acetone I think, but styrene also thins it IIRC. Both available from GRP suppliers
That depends on how much catalysts you add.
Put enough in, it sets in a minute or two and gets hot enough to catch fire
Without an accelerator (cobalt?) a thin film of layup resin doesn't cure that fast because the heat is constantly being cooled by the air and the surface itself. There are all kinds of accelerators and retarders to overcome this e.g. when large items are being laminated outdoors in winter. Overloading the resin with a lesser catalyst would weaken the end result. Filler is a different matter because a) the resin itself is more reactive, and b) there is usually a greater depth. If you skim it on to a sill, it will will still be soft when the hole you filled has long since cured. It always does cure eventually though
Re: Filling a window sill
Here's a photo I took of it half an hour ago:
Or would i be better with something more flexible like brown window sealer from a tube?
Or would car body filler with wooden blocks inside it be better, when I find a cheap source?
Or why not fill it with expanding foam then put a waterproof skin of car body filler and then paint on it, then i could fill every gap inside it whereas squeezing in bodyfiller could leave gaps..
There was a wooden beading at the top of the wood, but it seems to me an invitation for water to seep down the back of it so i am planning on not replacing it.
(the weather man says 4 out of 5 sunny days coming up...)
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