Roger Bisby investigates what’s behind the recent success of one particular manufacturer of decorators’ filler.
You have to hand it to Toupret, whoever is in charge of their sales and distribution has done a brilliant job because their products are everywhere.
They seem to have caught the competition napping but underpinning all this marketing success has to be a range of decorating fillers that keep customers coming back for more. I know a number of decorators who now buy nothing else and that is even more impressive when you consider that it isn’t the cheapest filler on the market.
TX 110 is an interior decorating filler that is rapid drying and ready for painting or wall papering in three hours. It can be painted with everything except polyurethanes and solvent-based epoxy paints. It is said to have no maximum depth limitation so a deep hole is no problem.
All too often you need one filler for blemishes and another one for deep holes. This filler can be shaped and built up but it is also capable of being feathered out. Use a fine abrasive (say 180 grit) because the fact it sands easily also means it will scratch if you attack it with a coarse paper. That said it is easy enough to apply a second coat to close it in.
This is a powder-based chemical set filler rather than a ready mixed filler. Personally I prefer to mix my filler rather than scoop it out of a tub but if you want ready mix filler this is also available in the Toupret range.
Another product that I looked at was the wood repair filler, again one you mix with water rather than the ready mix tub. I am used to using two pack wood fillers which dry fast and hard but can be sanded down. The advantage of two pack is that it doesn’t absorb moisture whereas many powder fillers tend to act like a sponge or (if they are cement-based) they shrink leaving a gap for capillary action.
So with that mindset against using powder-based fillers on wood it is little wonder that I have not picked this up in the past. At first glance I was not quite sure how it differs from multi-purpose filler apart from the colour.
I suppose the fact that it is suitable for interior and exterior use sets it apart from the decorating fillers. It also has a slight odour when wet, similar to ammonia but of course this goes when it dries. It can be sanded, painted or stained and it is ready in a similar time frame of three hours, it can also take a screw so that gives it an advantage over many powder fillers. It is a very smooth filler and because you can mix it quite wet it’s much easier to use than spirit-based stopping. I would certainly use it again.
