Repairing the CabinetFirst things first I needed to strip off the old paint. I used a healthy dose of Citristrip and the old paint came off like butta. Yep, this was definitely a Robotron at the factory.
With it stripped it was time to start some repair. I hadn't done a lot of wood repair before and when I solicited input on different fillers on klov I didn't get much response so I was left to do some experimenting.
I gathered up all the usual suspects and began.
My observations (nothing scientific, all opinion):
Bondo - The old go-to everyone seems to use. Good all around but dries so quick it can be challenging to apply to large areas.
Durhams - Great for bulk, you can make a ton of this stuff quickly. Not very moldable, more liquid-y and wasn't very strong when applied thinly like Bondo.
Minwax Wood Filler - A good alternative to Bondo, easier to work with in my opinion.
Milliput - This was my preference for edge repair. You can mold it by wetting your hands and working with it like clay. It takes longer to dry, I had to let it dry at least a couple hours before sanding.
For the kickplate area which had swollen and warped a bit I used
Minwax Wood Hardner to shore it up and then Bondo'd and sanded it level.
I tried the edge repair technique demonstrated on a John's Arcade video where you use plexi make the edge and Bondo. It didn't work well at all for me, chipping when I'd remove the plexi and it was a major pain to setup.
I much preferred Milliput, here you can see where I used it for corner and edge repair.