You misunderstand. I am not talking about "thick" coats. I totally agree that good body work will need less filler. I am talking about having enough time on a warm day to spread the filler out exactly like I want it. I DO hammer and dolly to get the metal as close as possible, but very few can get rid of dents and wrinkles in metal so perfectly that primer alone will give a perfect base for the perfect, flat, straight paint job. And how many hundreds of hours do you want to spend trying to get the metal PERFECT when in a lot less time you can get it really close so that only a skim of filler will finish it to perfection? Plus, I don't care how good you are, if you fab and weld in a rust patch, it is going to need at least a skim of filler. All high-end shops use filler to get to that last level of perfection. It's no secret.
So after I get a panel really close, I use filler. I TOTALLY agree that it should not be too thick, but I like to have the time to spread the filler to perfection. Given the time, I can carefully spread (sculpt) the filler out to match the contour of the panel, feather the edges out to eliminate excess sanding and smooth out the surface so that very little sanding needs to be done. This takes time. Specially if you are working on a larger area. When it is warm, and you only have 4 minutes or so of working time, the level of 'sculpting' time I have is limited. You can do this with several small batches of filler; spreading each batch as smooth as possible before it starts to set up. But how nice would it be to have the time to spread it out nicely in one batch. I consider myself to be a very good body man, and my filler is never 1/2" thick. I just wanted to let you know I wasn't talking about wanting the time to "sculpt" thick layers of filler after poor metal prep. I only wanted to share something I thought was pretty cool with other FABO members who would like to have 10 minutes of working time at 100 degrees rather than 3 minutes.
