Tool for paintless dent repair?

bennylava

bennylava

New member
I`m not sure if this is going to be the right website to be asking this question, but I know that a lot of you guys must have been in contact with this kind of thing. I`m looking to learn how to do paintless dent repair. Anyone here know much about it? What are the primary tools of the trade? The last 2 cars I got in, have had some ugly hail dents that I find myself giving the stinkeye to.

I don`t like `em and my customers aren`t going to like `em. So I`m going to fix them myself! Well, fix them as well as I can anyway. I`m looking to take them from an obvious eyesore, to perhaps unnoticeable. So what are the tools of the trade? It seems there are many. I was thinking of getting started with a kit like this:

From US Paintless Hail Repair PDR Dent Lifter Puller Ding Removal Tools Bag Kits
 
Paintless dent repair is an art that requires a school, a lot of long tools of different shapes and sizes, a special lighting system so that you can see the dent while you work it from the opposite side, and so much more...

You cannot just go watch a video and then think you can do it...

Just like Detailing but it is much harder to attain the skillset and get the years of experience...

It is carefully working metal from the opposite side of the dent with long metal tools that are placed on the dent at different parts of it and moved in certain ways with so much pressure to carefully smooth the dent without stretching the metal or making another dent from the inside out...

I looked at your attachment - my guy never used anything like that if he could get behind the dent with his tools...
Besides, look at that stuff... If you glue it on a dent and pull that thing out, what happens if it pulls the metal out too far???
Now you have another worse problem because you stretched the metal outwards and now have to understand how to shrink it down to level - much harder to do...

And what if the glued piece won`t pull the dent out at all ??? Now what are you going to do ?

What you can do, is find the best PDR guy around and have him come over and fix a dent for you and hopefully, you can ask him questions and watch him work, and see for yourself how really hard it is without training, equipment, and experience...

When I was working outside of Seattle, WA., I had the absolute BEST guy for that job come out a zillion times and fix dents for my Clients` vehicles...
He was so good, I would never be able to find where the dent used to be when he was done.. It was really gone.. He usually charged from $75 - $100 for each dent but would give me discounts because I gave him lots of business, or we would trade work or something, etc...
Some guys are not able to do that but get very close...

Dan F
 
I have to pull out the "ain`t skeered" on this one. I`ve got a lot of old hoods and panels I could practice on. Cause it seems that yeah there are varying degrees of success, on any given dent. I`m really only talking about the little ones, mainly hail dents. If I could achieve some measure of success on them, it would help me out a lot. Perfection like the pros is really not needed here. Although if there were some kind of training classes somewhere near me I`d definitely be interested in taking them.

I just can`t help but think - With the... stuff I`ve dove off into on cars before, massaging on a piece of metal, is like nothing at this point lol. And I`ve just always liked this kind of thing. Playing with sheet metal
 
bennylava said:
I have to pull out the "ain`t skeered" on this one. I`ve got a lot of old hoods and panels I could practice on. Cause it seems that yeah there are varying degrees of success, on any given dent. I`m really only talking about the little ones, mainly hail dents. If I could achieve some measure of success on them, it would help me out a lot. Perfection like the pros is really not needed here. Although if there were some kind of training classes somewhere near me I`d definitely be interested in taking them.

I just can`t help but think - With the... stuff I`ve dove off into on cars before, massaging on a piece of metal, is like nothing at this point lol. And I`ve just always liked this kind of thing. Playing with sheet metal
Click to expand...

Good Luck !
Dan F
 
Thanks I`ll probably need it. We`ll see how it goes. As I`m not looking for the perfection of the pros, hopefully it will go well enough. I`m just hoping I can learn to take it from "obvious hail dent" to .

- you`ve got to be looking for it to spot it-

or perhaps

"maybe they`ll notice it, maybe they won`t"
 
bennylava is right, PDR requires a unique skill set. At the dealership I`ve worked at, we used to outsource our PDR work and some guys from Dent Wizzerd would do the work. After forming somewhat of a relationship, I asked if I could try to smooth out a dent, I initially thought "How hard can this be?" It was hard, really hard, especially when you have to use more than one tool at a time. After 8 minutes of trying to even start popping the dent back into place, I gave up. I hardly ever give up on something. PDR is a true art, and quite the skilled trade. Find a gent that has been in the business for a while, and you`ll be golden.
 
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