How to Fix a Missing Chunk of Wood with Bondo

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I am going to show you how to fix a missing chunk of wood with Bondo on this old cabinet that has some trim missing. It’s easy and affordable and once you are done refinishing it you won’t ever know that there was a chunk missing!

I bought this amazing cabinet from a friend for only $30! It’s not the prettiest but I love the shape, the tall legs, and the fantastic storage it provides. I thought this would be perfect for my daughter while she was in college.

College bedrooms aren’t the biggest and the closets are really small. This cabinet will help her store some things that she uses on a daily basis and it’s nice and tall so she can put her tv on it and easily see it from laying in bed.

*This post contains affiliate links. For more details see my full disclosure.

Materials and Tools You Will Need:

• Bondo
• cardboard or something to mix it on
• plastic spoon
• putty knife
• plastic gloves
• mask
• sandpaper

How to Fix a Missing Chunk of Wood

Here is the cabinet before I did any repairs.

You can see I have two pretty big chunks missing from the trim there on the drawer.

First, you want to sand the area smooth.

The first step is to smooth the area out by sanding. This will help you get a smoother finish when you are done applying the Bondo.

Mix your Bondo and start applying it to the wood furniture.

Bondo comes with two parts that you have to mix together to get what we know of as Bondo. Once you start mixing you need to work quickly because it starts to dry very quickly! It’s a good idea to wear a mask for this part because there are some fumes. Also, make sure you work in a well-ventilated area.

Follow the directions on the Bondo for mixing. I used a piece of cardboard and the wrong end of a plastic spoon for this. Don’t mix it on anything you want to keep. Make sure it’s something disposable. And make sure you wear gloves for this to protect your skin.

Once you have it mixed start applying to your furniture. I used the spoon that I mixed with. If you are working with a more flat surface then you might want to work with a putty knife to get a smoother finish.

I was working on a curved surface so I know that I was going to have to do quite a bit of sanding to get that rounded finish.

As soon as you feel like it’s hardening you need to stop applying. Let it dry and sand gently to see what you have now. You might have to do another coat of Bondo.

Sand the Bondo

Once you have allowed your Bondo to dry sand it smooth and see what you have.

As you can see from this photo I needed to do another coat because there are a few pits and rough edges. After the second coat, I was good to go.

Prime and paint your furniture

Once all the Bondo is dry it’s time to prime your piece. Bondo is unfortunately not sustainable so you will need to paint over it so you don’t see it.

Here is the piece of furniture after one coat of primer. Yes, you can still see the place where I repaired it but once I get two coats of paint on the area will disappear.

Here the drawer is after one coat of paint. See, it’s already disappearing!

How to Fix a Missing Chunk of Wood – The Results!

Here she is! The finished cabinet in my daughter’s college bedroom.

Looking at the finished product you can’t tell at all that there was a missing chunk of wood anywhere on this cabinet! I am so happy with the results and more importantly, my daughter is ecstatic!

This cabinet was so unique because of its shape and storage capabilities and now its finish is just gorgeous.

In case you are wondering about the black hardware, we got them from Amazon. You can find them here.

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How to Fix a Missing Chunk of Wood with Bondo