Vehicle Dent Repairs
by BARRY NEWTON
Repairing dents on bodywork is not that difficult. As long as you take your time and don't overdo things it will be alright. The secret to knocking out a dent in a panel is to use a panel hammer in a circular motion tapping (not hammering) the outside of the dent inwards towards the centre of the dent.
Most of the propulsion will come from the wrist action not from the elbow and this illustrates how light a tap we are talking about here. A panel beater will use dozens, if not hundreds of small well placed taps of the hammer to persuade the metal back into place.
The only time more force may be needed is when the dent is large and initially it will need to be pushed out with more force to get the worst of the hollow out. Never push out with more force than what was used to create the dent or it will make matters worse. Your main enemy here is stretched metal and this is what you may end up with by over exuberance.
Nevertheless, even if you end up stretching the metal all is not lost. Professional panel beaters would heat up the stretched metal with an oxy acetylene torch and shrink the metal back into place with some more accurate taps of the panel hammer. If you're new at body work repairs you probably will not have this facility. The alternative is very crude but effective,
To shrink the metal without heating we need what is called a shrinking dolly .Dollies are used to put behind the metal to support the hammer blows. The shrinking dolly however has a groove that runs along the length of the dolly. It is this groove which that we utilise to get rid of the stretched metal. There is a panel hammer which matches this but has a blunt chisel like end to it. The idea is that you hold the dolly behind the stretched panel and knock excess metal into it.
The next step is to fill this with filler and sand it down, Use a sanding block with the sandpaper wrapped around it to get an even finish. Start with the roughest sandpaper and move down to the smoothest, finally use wet on wet sandpaper which is very smooth and prepares the surface for painting. Painting is another story for another day.
