Hail Dent Removal. How to? Tips? Ideas?

OneEyed

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Okay I've got about a dozen or so dents I'd like removed. I talked to a guy from dent crafters last fall and he made it sound like a horrible and tedious process and that he was so backed up, he wouldn't even be able to look at it for several months. Kind of got the impression that he wasn't interested in it and he is the only guy that does work for all the good body shops around here.

Anyways, the trunk and hood are pretty big and flat areas, which in theory seems easy to get to and the headliner will need to come down anyways so everything is accessible.

People always talk about the heat and dry ice method, someone even told me that a tarp covering it on a hot day might do it. But has anyone actually done this? Both sound too good to be true.

I don't want any holes drilled or anything that would require new paint otherwise then the whole car would have to be painted, which would take away from the patina/worn look that I like.

Any help would be appreciated.
 
What the dent dude failed to tell you is this metal is to heavy for their system.
Now without seeing the dents it is hard to say what is involved in fixing them.
In todays bodywork nobody drills holes anymore, they use a special tool that welds a nail to the surface that is then used to pull the dent.

Sometimes there is no easy way, a good body man might be able to blend and age the surface to help mask the repair.

Alan
 
I have watched a guy use heat only to pop hail damage but there is an art to it, he used the heat gun around the dent area without touching the middle, then allowed the area to cool and you could hear a pop as the metal popped out. I would think checking youtube might be the way to go, Ill spend a couple of mins looking and let you know.
 
This is probably a dumb question, but are those glue gun types worthwhile? or is the metal too think on this old car?
 
I've watched those Fix-A-Dent guys at dealers lots. They all "massaged" the dents out, including hail damaged cars, with weird shaped metal hand held anvils for lack of a better term. For dents not accessible by hand, they drilled holes and used solid rods with funny shaped tips to massage the dent. Quite skilfull. Used one of those guys when all my YouTube University training failed. He massaged out a crease so that it dissapeared.
Rush will never find it on his New Yorker.
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Thanks for the help so far! The car had hail damage when i bought it...even if I can get it to the point where the dents are a lot smaller would be fine with me. I'm currently looking at youtube vids and checking out glue kits as well.
 
Good luck OneEyed. I've learned how to do several very useful things from youtube vids myself.
 
My RAM aquired $3300 of hail damage a few years ago. One of those dealership gigs made it look like glass. I was blown away.
 
Many dents and dings can be removed by the experts without paint jobs if the paint isn't damaged already by the hailstorm. I doubt you can fix it to untracable condition from scratch by watching a couple of vids first. There's lots of different tools involved depending on the damage and even more so experience. I had multiple dents removed and the guy told me he actually has to train on a couple of old parts first when he returns from his holidays.
Drilling is rarely used these days, I always disassemble if necessary they usually find a way to get there then, they also glue small plastic parts on to pull dings out that can be removed afterwards without leaving traces.
 
I've seen video's where the metal around the dent is heated and allowed to cool which pops out the dent.
 
There's all kinds of treatments, including heat, they even have inflatable cushions for some larger dents in the roof areas for example.
 
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