Cement And Bondo®

Wear safety glasses! Protect your eyes almost every other

part of you can be cleaned.

When sanding wear both the safety glasses and a fine

particle dust mask. Be safe first and always!

Okay, at first I thought, "Why share this information with

anyone and reduce the awe effect of my work" but then I

figured, "What the hell, people have probably been doing

this for years and it isnt anything new". Besides, the

first stone is really not that impressive anyway; so with

that ego baloney out of the way.

I have made a small bud vase with cement and an empty hot

sauce bottle: Recycle and all that. Well it is easier than

trying to seal the inside of a small vase.

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After the cement had cured enough to remove from the mold I

took a rasp and scored (gouged actually) away some of the

cement nothing special. Once the cement had cured a bit

longer a few more days I filled the areas I had carved

(that is a generous term) with Bondo®: the same Bondo® used

by autobody shops for body work.

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Then I though why not make stepping stones, garden plaques

(markers), or sculptures and use Bondo® to inlay a design

in the item.

So my next trial was a plaque poured with a cement mix 1:3:1

(cement: fine sand: perlite). I will skip the perlite in the

next project.

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Anyway, After the cement had cured enough to remove from the

mold I scored a poor facsimile of a bamboo sprig and the

Chinese character for strength in the partially cured

cement and allow the piece to dry.

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When the cement had cured a bit longer I filled the areas I had carved with Bondo®.

When the Bondo® had cured I sanded away the excess. By the

way the less Bondo® the less sanding. At first I used too

much and had to use a file to remove the heavier areas.

After much sanding "voila" the stone with the bamboo and the

Chinese character was just about finished. I took a sharp

pointed tool and scribed a few vein lines in the bamboo.


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Now you might ask, "What about the color?"

Thats where I had the most fun: it seems Bondo® can be

thinned and tinted. To thin it use an equal quantity or less

of fiberglass resin, to color use any artist oil colors (I

used some old Bob Ross paints) mix the resin and paint

before adding the hardener (catalyst). You have lots of time

to work the mix before you add the catalyst so add color

judicially until you have the color you want.

For my next project I will add brass filings in the Bondo®

mix. Ill bet it will look great when finished.

So except for the final touch-up thats about it.

Two examples:

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Cement with Bondo® no color added.

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Redwood scrap with Bondo® tinted with yellow ochre. Neither

design is an actual Chinese character.