Need some window sill advise QUICK!

[Tom Baugues]

I ordered a couple of replacement windows for my garage. Picked them up today. I knew the window sills needed to be painted real bad but after pulling the old windows out the sill is worse than I thought. The wood is not soft at all but it has cracked and weathered pretty bad. This is the outside part of the sill that is always exposed to the weather. My question is...can I use a wood filler that will harden to fill in these cracks? I have new windows sitting here but cant put them back in until I resolve this.

 

[Tom Baugues]

Well, I'm screwed. I ran over to Home Depot and bought some "Dap Plastic Wood". Seems like it will do the job. However...it says to apply it only when temperature is above 40. It's only about 50 degrees now and is suppose to get real cold tonight. Down to about 30. So I'm afraid to apply it as it will not cure. I suppose I'll have to wait until tomorrow when the sun is out. Well this just hasn't worked out very well at all.

 

[Charles Hans]

Tom You're a WOODWORKER RIGHT?Mill new ones from white oak and do the job right.

 

[Bill Arnold]

If I were looking for a quick fix in place of making a new wood sill, I'd fill with Bondo, massaging it into the cracks as deep as possible. I've never done that, but it should work.

 

[Ted Calver]

How long is the cracked piece? Hard to tell from the picture. Was it part of the original window or was it spliced in as a previous repair. Seems to be the only part that has cracked. Any chance it would be easily replaced?

 

[fred hargis]

Bondo would be a good choice, it's dries really quick and is fairly permanent. I used some on some porch rail balusters to replace some rotted wood. Another good choice (and my favorite) is wood epoxy. Problem is it's not usually locally available (at least to me) so ordering it takes a few extra days.

 

[Bob Gibson]

I had the exact same problem last year. I used Bondo for wood and it worked great. Not sure about the temperature requirements though.

 

[Darren Wright]

I had a similar issue at my last house, the finger joints started to separate and were letting rain soak in cause the joints to separate even more, even had some dry rot. I actually brushed some of the 2 part epoxy that comes with fiberglass repair kits into the wood to soak up and let it seal up the fibers first, then used some bondo over that to smooth things out and fill in the rotted areas. Was by that house recently and the windows sills still look like they did when I fixed them 8 years ago, haven't rotted out yet again.