Remember when we had to mix body filler by hand?

Back in the 90s at my first shop in Phoenix, I'd scoop that pink cream and blue hardener onto a piece of cardboard and mix it with a plastic spreader for a full minute, trying to get the color just right. Now I just grab a pre-measured tube from the 3M system, pop it in the gun, and get a perfect mix every single time in about ten seconds. We switched over about five years ago after wasting too much material on bad batches. Does anyone still do it the old way, or is that pretty much gone now?

3 comments

3 Comments

thead443mo ago

Honestly, the thing I miss is how that old method taught you to read the material. You could feel the mix getting warm in your hand, see the color shift, and you just knew when it was right. The new tubes are foolproof, but they don't teach you anything. It's like trading a skill for pure speed.

troy9963mo ago

You're right, @thead44, that old way built a real feel for the work.

river1822mo ago

Is this just how everything's going now though? You see it everywhere, not just in body work. Cooking from a box instead of scratch, using a GPS instead of reading a map, even how people fix things around the house with those video tutorials instead of figuring it out themselves. The old way was slower and you wasted more stuff, sure, but you actually learned something about the materials and the process. Now it's all about convenience and not making mistakes, but you lose that connection to what you're doing. I guess that's just progress, but sometimes I miss having to pay attention and get it right by feel.