Die-cast body work?

[Pat Minarick]

What is the best thing to use to add to the a die-cast body. I need to extend the bottom of some fenders and rocker panels. I've never messed with metal bodies except for repainting some Hot Wheels. Was thinking of having cast in resin first , then making changes to the body .This is what I'm working on. Really wanting to fix the problems I see with the body and build a chassis and interior and have it casted.

[Ace-Garageguy]

You're probably going to get a lot of different answers here.

I make a lot of things, and have a lot of experience with a wide array of fillers and adhesives.

For filling or altering the edges of panels, I'd really recommend a high-quality epoxy product, thickened with microballoon.

In general, adhesion to many die-cast materials isn't great, so for working on edges where you have very little bonding area anyway, a GOOD quality epoxy will tend to flake and chip less than some 5-minute goo.

By high-quality, I mean an epoxy that takes at least 1/2 hour to set up. In general, the longer any epoxy takes to set, the stronger it will be.

The stuff I use, which works great (but is prohibitively expensive for most modelers) takes several hours to gel, and a 24 hour cure before it's ready to handle.

Still, you might want to experiment with the slow-setting JB Weld. Some people do seem to get decent results with it.

AND...for general filling and reshaping, this Bondo product works just fine. Just be certain you get the two-part "Professional" stuff.

                                                        

 

 

[cobraman]

I like the JB Weld but never did try the Bondo. Most of my metal work was done on Hotwheels cars.

[Pat Minarick]

1 hour ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

You're probably going to get a lot of different answers here.

I make a lot of things, and have a lot of experience with a wide array of fillers and adhesives.

For filling or altering the edges of panels, I'd really recommend a high-quality epoxy product, thickened with microballoon.

In general, adhesion to many die-cast materials isn't great, so for working on edges where you have very little bonding area anyway, a GOOD quality epoxy will tend to flake and chip less than some 5-minute goo.

By high-quality, I mean an epoxy that takes at least 1/2 hour to set up. In general, the longer any epoxy takes to set, the stronger it will be.

The stuff I use, which works great (but is prohibitively expensive for most modelers) takes several hours to gel, and a 24 hour cure before it's ready to handle.

Still, you might want to experiment with the slow-setting JB Weld. Some people do seem to get decent results with it.

AND...for general filling and reshaping, this Bondo product works just fine. Just be certain you get the two-part "Professional" stuff.

                                                        

 

 

That's the body putty I usually use. Thanks for the tip on the epoxy, I have micro balloons so I will try. Still have a lot of unnecessary stuff to grind out on the inside before I  really start working on the body.

[Pat Minarick]

52 minutes ago, cobraman said:

I like the JB Weld but never did try the Bondo. Most of my metal work was done on Hotwheels cars.

Thank , that's what I heard of using, but wasn't sure if it would work good for what I  need to do.

[SfanGoch]

Lab Metal is an aluminum filled repair putty which I highly recommend.

It's much better than J-B Weld It has an 81 Hardness Rating on the Shore D Scale, which makes it very tough. Bill can verify this..

[Pat Minarick]

24 minutes ago, SfanGoch said:

Lab Metal is an aluminum filled repair putty which I highly recommend.

It's much better than J-B Weld It has an 81 Hardness Rating on the Shore D Scale, which makes it very tough. Bill can verify this..

Thank you for the suggestion , I think I'll try the epoxy first. That might not be worth getting for one body ,but will keep it in mind . I wouldn't even mess with this one , but I owned a 85 Grand Fury for about fifteen years and really want to build a couple of these.