My 1917 touring that I’m just starting on has all its its original body wood in decent shape. Maybe 80-90% of it is reusable, but that may change as I get further into dis-assembly. What products are best for restoring small areas of rot or damage, and what is best to use for filling original nail and screw holes to ensure a tight structure? I don’t want to just re-nail and reinstall screws when mounting door skins and sheetmetal to the old wood, without taking steps to ensure a tight nail hole or screw hole.
I’m thinking of PC Products Wood Petrifier and Woody Paste, but I’m not sure the epoxy paste will fully fill a nail hole or wood screw hole. What do folks who’ve done a lot of T’s use?
Thanks
The question you pose about what products are best is very misleading. While I am not going to tell you not to use them, let me just say this. In my line of work, we have restored well over 150 vintage vehicles with nearly all of them have some level of a wood-based infrastructure. The two worst outcomes that I have tremendously regretted were Fordors where we tried to save the customer money by using a strengthening product. What these products do is embrittle the wood which is NOT what you want in a vintage automobile that sees vibrations and severe twisting while being driven. Wood by nature flexes and then returns to its original position.
With regard to screw holes, the most effective way to repair damaged/stripped screw hole fibers is to drill the entire hole oversize and glue the same size hardwood dowel into that hole. Most big box stores carry Hardwood Dowels ranging from ¼" all the way to 2".
For filling holes that Tacks were removed, I have struggled finding adequate sized (i.e.: fat enough) toothpicks. For these, IMO the best is to use a 3/16" dowel. An inexpensive Dowel to use is a Poplar variety that has some rigidity since it is a semi-hardwood. The reason I don't prefer the toothpick method is that when you are filling the hole, all you are doing is filling it with glue and using the toothpick as the filler. Glue by itself does a poor job at gripping a nail or tack. When you drill the hole oversized and attach it with glue, the tack or nail is being driven into the dowel and so it is compressing the surrounding wood fibers only.
If you have a small non-structural area on a Sill or body member that you want to repair instead of replace, IMO the better way is to do one of the following methods. Depending on the area size and shape, either drill a sized hole with a boring bit such as a Forstner bit (-use this over a spade bit) to a size of a hardwood Dowel, and then glue a Dowel directly into that hole and allow to dry. If you have an area that is hypothetically 1½" wide by 4" long, then drill two 1" holes with a 1" interval. Install the Dowels into those two holes. Once the glue in those are dry, drill two more holes and install the 3rd and 4th Dowels. Now you have four 1" Dowels in a row that are glued into the Bodywood. Once the glue for the four Dowels has cured, drill alongside of the four new Dowels with a ½" Forstner bit in random locations and glue ½" hardwood Dowels into those holes. Continue this process around the perimeter of the 1" Dowels until all of the surrounding damaged wood has been replaced by the Dowels. This gives the most permanent structural repair that will move/flex with the surrounding wood. An alternative to using the Dowels is to use an Oscillating Multi-cutter tool to remove sections of the damaged area. The two biggest downsides to this method is access to the damage is often hindered by the inability to get the tool into the needed location. The second is you MUST be talented enough to create a filling-plug that is the correct size to glue in. If the plug is too loose when glued in, you will not have enough structural integrity to make a difference, and if the fit is too tight, when you drive the plug into the hole, the glue will be squeezed out -thus again creating poor structural integrity.
Best wishes...
