Filling Holes 101. What spackle or filler should you use?

this Chris Idaho painter here on paint live TV today I'm going to be talking about spackling I've got all kinds of uh products in front of me all kinds or maybe um five different kinds in front of me but a lightweight spackling heavy bodied spackling what should you fill your nails or holes with in uh drywall or wood I'm going to be talking about a little bit about the differences in the two and what you should use wear and some other options that are available out there for you to patch uh holes in walls and wood so if you want to know what you should be using to pass your holes stay tuned for this [Applause] [Music] video all right so I got a few products in front of me I've got a product Tower this is a lightweight spackling from Tower I've got a Crawford's uh heavy uh body spackling vinyl spackle paste right here I've got um a patch and paint and one from dap right here I've got quickwood which is an epoxy right here and then I've got Bondo glazing putty uh I'd say the four I actually have in my vehicle my um my painting vehicles I got I keep the lightweight spackling the Crawford spackling Bondo quickwood I don't use this product but I got it here I want to talk a little bit about it all right so I want to talk about the first product and it is Tower uh ceilings uh this is a lightweight spackling right here and um it's just that it's lightweight that's one of the benefits to it it dries really fast and it Sands really easy those are three benefits that are really nice so you can patch holes it's going to dry super fast you can sand those holes and then paint them right away that's a great benefit to this product but being a lightweight product it's not very durable the bonding capabilities aren't as good as say a heavy bodied um vinyl spackling paste which bonds a little bit better this stuff bonds well but it doesn't Bond you know super well to um both uh plaster in wood but it's great for holes if you do have large holes one of the benefits to this product is it does fill large holes and it dries very fast it's not heavy once again it's l of heavy bodied spackle so it's going to hang really well in those holes so you can put it in a large hole and it's not going to what we call sag and start to Sag out of the hole it's going to hang really well because it is lightweight and it does once again dry extremely fast all right so I touched on a few of the benefits to the product and one of the benefits was being lightweight and along with that lightweight comes the lack of dirt durability so the product isn't very durable so you don't want to use it in any hight trffic areas where there could be any type of um any type of people um animals or equipment or stuff bumping it where it could actually Dent it Nick it or ding it because it's not very strong it's great for um patching quarter size holes or smaller in anything on a flat surface but you don't want to use it anywhere around corners um rounded um edges uh and stuff like that anything that could get bumped by a vacuum or anything else moving in and out of door frames and stuff like that so that's a lightweight uh product I like using it when we're just walking through houses getting ready to paint we're going to be painting a room say in a day you can uh patch and you can paint in a day and roll right over it because it dries really fast so it dries fast anything like your um nail holes in walls um Thumbtack holes and walls it's excellent for that and once again cuz it does dry extremely fast and Sands easy now on the flip side we have Crawford's vinyl spackling paste this is a super heavy product this is very dense I'll give you a look at uh inside these things so you can see um the product itself but this is uh a heavy body product so it's going to dry a lot slower does have an odor to it the lightweight SP Lan it's very low odor this does have a strong odor cuz it's got some um bonding agents and stuff that help it Bond a lot better so this is going to bond better it's going to be a lot stronger so in hight trffic areas this is something that's going to make a lot more sense any any type of um large patches or any type of areas that something may uh bump it it's going to be a lot more durable less likely to um Dent Nick or ding it does sand easy not nearly as easy as a lightweight spack Lan it dries significantly slower and uh being a heavy body product this is really heavy if you're trying to fill large holes it doesn't hang as well as a lightweight spackle so it's going to Sag a little bit if you got large holes they're going to be fill in so it's great for small like quarter size holes or smaller where you need durability both these products are interior exterior products so you can use them inside and outside but I use uh Crawford spackling where anywhere where I need a really durable a good Bond and one place I can um think of is your interior wood trim a door jam any type of spackling I'm going to be doing in a door jam um it's going to be uh vinyl spackling paste from crawfords now if I'm doing walls and I'm not going to be painting for several days this is a better option because your holes are going to be patched with something more durable it's going to bond a lot better but if you're trying to paint the same day uh this is not going to dry very fast when it comes to cabinet doors we're uh large holes filling knots and stuff like that in cabinet doors we're always filling first with spackling we want something that bonds a lot better than a lightweight spackle something that's going to be a lot more durable so we're going to be using CW Crawford's vinyl spackle uh so once again if you want that durability you want something that bonds better you're going to want to go with a a vinyl spackling pce that's a heavy body product so now I do want to talk about some other products we've got a quick wood now if you got like a Nick or a ding and some interior wood trim and you need to fill out that Nick or ding or a corner I got a video where a dog chewed up a corner on some wood trim you'll uh a spackling Pace like the vinyl spackling yeah you could build up that corner you could sand it but if something um very light a vacuum a broom something like that hits it or somebody you know rubs up it against it on a door jam or something like that it could uh break out and um Nick or Ding and just or fall out with any type of movement we keep uh quick wood in our vehicles and a quick wood is an epoxy that dries extremely fast you can take a sand that drill that um uh and work with it you know with an within an hour so I filled a corner and it um and I sanded that corner into a square corner it all chewed off by a dog and I got that corner all repaired and patched with quick wood and you couldn't even tell that the dog chewed it up so something that's going to be extremely durable this actually bonds to uh its surface that you're molding it to and once again we use it on wood trim there it becomes stronger than the actual wood itself and the bond is actually stronger than the wood so if anything's going to break the wood's going to break a nicker chip before the um epoxy will and once again you could uh mold it manipulate it manipulate it to the shape that you need it to and then sand it but once again once it dries you can drill it uh you can do anything to it that you need to do so if you I I've actually used it to patch um door um where the door handles go in where the screws were ended up breaking um where the plunger was I had to uh build that up with quick wood eventually drill the hole put new screws back in it and fix that door so it's a great product to have handy for stuff like that once again you don't want to use like a a vinyl spackling paste or a lightweight spackle to do stuff like that cuz it's probably just going to break and come loose there's another product that we keep at Bondo glazing putty I got a a video the right filler and it's a um it talks about you know what to fill cabinets uh with when you're doing cabinet repaints and we use two products uh Crawford spackling and Bondo Bondo glazing putty is a product that dries super hard bonds extremely well and um it's a really thinned um it's a solvent-based product that you can use it to uh get rid of brush Strokes uh stippling if you skim coat it over that but one of the things the drawbacks to you know like a vinyl spackling paste or um a lightweight spackle they do sand really easy so it's it's very easy to actually do your sanding and then when you do your painting you can see a slight indentation where you're trying to fill that hole with because they are soft and it's easy to sand out a little bit of the Spackle so we take and we'll do our initial fill with like a vinyl spackling paste and then sand that then we'll back it with a Bondo glazing putty which is a lot harder and then you'll never see where that NE ding or nail head was so there's a time and a place for you know all three of these products but we'll U for instance uh Bondo glazing putty the carpenters will go in install the trim there's going to be nail heads everywhere we fill the nail heads with Crawford's vinyl spackling paste sand it then we um hit it with our glazing putty spot glazing putty and a spackle knife flexible spackle knife we'll sand that and then paint it and then you won't see where any of those Nicks dings or um the nail heads were so this is Bondo glazing putty it's a onep part product just used right out of the tube and um it's uh made by Bondo once again I want to talk a little bit about um lightweight spackle patch and paints in one so this is a product from dap right here it's um fast and final lightweight spackling paste I haven't had it that long and um I opened it up and it's all kind of um getting really hard and um not usable now so I'll talk a little bit about containers that these things come in you always want to have your containers sealed and tight or your products are going to dry out but this is a patch and paint one so typically with your spackle lightweight um or your vinyl spackling paste you need to prime before you do any painting because they're very porous products and you'll see you know where uh where the spackling was done if you're not careful but this is a prime and patched one so it has products resins in it and stuff that make it so you don't prime one of the drawbacks to it is it doesn't last long in the container that's why I want to show you it's already getting um hard and brittle and stuff so it's not um it doesn't have the life that like a lightweight spackle does here and our lightweight spackle here I mean we we've have them in our vehicles as long as you keep them sealed they can be in there for several years in these um plastic containers that seal uh very tight but um the patch patch and paint in one you know I um I haven't really seen a whole lot of difference you know with those products and haven't had a lot of success with them um I've had them dry out like this and once again I think it's because of the products in there that make it a primer also that um give it you know a little bit shorter shelf life I guess or or probably a lot lot um shorter shelf lot shorter shelf life the shelf life isn't as long is your typical products right here and we're accustomed to you know actually rolling um priming just spot priming our spackle if we need to or rolling over multiple coats of paint two coats of paint is and your first coat of paint is acting as your basically your primer over your spackle and then your second coat um usually you don't see where you spackled it all so but if you want to Prime uh if you don't want to have to prime or you're not too coating you know sometimes these products U might be a good option um I've just never got accustom to using them there are spackle out there also that are colored they'll go on like a pink and when they dry they're white it's kind of convenient but um and for do-it-yourselfers but these are the two products the um vinyl spackling paste best uh heavy bodied spackle that I've or vinyl paste that I've ever used right there by Crawford's um Tower sealants best uh lightweight one I've ever used I carry those four products talk a little bit about containers now and what to look for in a container when you're buying spackle so I know I've got you'll see you'll me using um in plastic containers crawfords crawfords also comes in um metal cans and most most spackle products do come in metal cans that and I think they might be getting um rid of them you're starting to see more plastic containers and one of the reasons is I can't stand the metal containers at all that's used to be what everything came in and one of the major drawbacks is the metal containers begin Rusty and they're Teflon coated but that doesn't stop them from rusting inside doesn't stop the spackling from drying around the edges around the sides and one of the the the problems with the rust is the rust begins to get mixed in with your spackling and then it begins to discolor it that begins to bleed through through your paint it just causes a lot of issue those issues and those metal containers don't seal nearly as well as a plastic container does these these containers are a lot more airtight and give your um product a lot more life little tip you can add um a little bit of water to your products if they begin to dry out or put a little touch of water on it and it'll keep the tops of them um keeps the tops of them wet you do when we're working with these we got the lids off of them we're working with them you know you get some evaporation that begin to dry out both these products we just add a little water to it and it'll basically rewet reconstitute the product and it'll keep um keep the life of the product a lot longer another little handy tip when you're you know using your spackle there have and this is the same with the metal cans or um the the plastic containers you'll start to get spackle inside this Rim just take your 5 in one tool you always got a 5 in one and I'm just I'm just going to scrape that out because I don't want any spackling built up inside there because that's going to cause it not to get an airtight seal clean that out clean this edge off make sure it's airtight and um and your product's going to last a lot longer and that's the same with the metal container one of the drawbacks of that metal container when you're cleaning it out that's going to scratch the Teflon coating and then that's eventually going to cause it to rust but even if you don't scratch scratch a Teflon what I've noticed the chemicals especially inside um the vinyl spackling Pace there's a lot harsher chemicals in here and and I believe one of those that one of the reasons for that is to help it to bond and make it a lot harder but those chemicals make your U metal containers rust a lot easier but but this is your light um or your heavy bodied product right here and it's heavy bodied it's very dense very smooth so that's the vinyl CRA um the Crawford's vinyl spackling past now when I compare that with a lightweight product this lightweight product right here um is going to be very porous soft and very porous so and it's kind of gritty and grainy a little bit but um that product right here from Tower right here it's kind of smooth and buttery but then once again super light uh weight right there so that's the two one of them's a lot wider than the other one not that that matters a whole lot but that's um the look and the feel of the two products the quick wood right here that I use this is an epoxy and all you do is just snip off some with your scissors whatever amount you need you just knead it in your hand knead it to it um kind of changes to a light t hand color it's mixing the two epoxy the two epoxies together which are two-part and then you can mold it right into um whatever you need to mold it into your Bondo glazing putty is a red product uh kind of got a nasty smell to it but we use that right there and um it's a um product that's a chemical based product that does dry really fast Sands really easy and that's what that looks like so there's a little bit about the products that I use uh when and where I use them hopefully that's helped you if it has don't forget to give us a thumbs up hit the Subscribe button hit the notification Bell that way you get notified every time we come out with a new video it's free simple easy to do if you got any questions or comments about this video leave it down in the comment section below we would love to hear what you have to say or if you got any tips or tricks or any products you want to share that work for you just leave it in the comment section below like we always say we'll see you next time right here on pain Life TV out