Fill before painting

[John T Barker]

I am in the midst of a dollhouse build for my daughter and the majority of it is constructed out of 1/2" ply. The material is fairly porous and I'd like to paint a fair amount of the interior but have it look smooth, not show the pores. What is a good fill for this? Spackle?

John

[phil harold]

Prime, spackle, sand
or
bondo, sand, prime

Spackle does like to shrink so on bigger voids you may need multiple coats

[Sam Murdoch]

In this case I would go with Phil's 1st option. Bondo is a good product but is harder than the wood and as you sand you will likely oversand around the bondo leaving hard shiny little islands. Can be done but requires a certain touch and so much less forgiving than spackle.