Antique door refinishing

You can't stain or wax over bondo. Well you can but it's gonna look like shite. Paint is about your only choice.

If you want to try a ceruse look that would work. It's kinda like doing a glaze, but a little less of a glazed look and more or letting the grain show through. You can use glaze, I actually used stain on these.

Basically you use a wire brush and rub it with the grain to open it up, then paint it white (use a good paint that dries really hard and flat that's for like trim, I used emerald urethane trim enamel by Sherwin williams).

Then use glaze, or like I used stain to bring out the grain. It'll turn the paint kind of a cream color if you use a dark brown glaze or stain. (I used minwax dark walnut on these.) Then poly over it.

If you are interested, let me know and I'll go into more detail about it. Wasn't super hard, but do have to move pretty quick with the stain. Glaze might be easier, but I was having trouble finding it locally and someone that would mix it for samples and the stain was just what I wanted. Apparently glazed cabinets are not the in thing anymore.

Could try a small can of gel stain. I’ve used it before and it goes on and covers like paint. Just use an old sock to apply, then wipe off after a time. I refinished our door with it and there were some filled areas. You can tell where they are, but the color is fairly uniform.

ETA: it’s not perfect but the door was beat up already and my wife always has something hanging that obscures the spots.

Thanks for the suggestions. After doing some more research I think y’all are right - no way to get a nice finish over bondo without paint. I’m going to sand the bondo off to reveal the wood patches underneath then go from there depending on how tight the wood patch work is.