The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop "Paintless Dent Repair"

Has anyone tried one of the 'dent lifter" kits on the market, the ones that involve using a hot glue gun to stick a stud onto a painted surface and lift a ding without any surface prep and repainting? The kits look like sucker bait, and I believe I could home-brew something very similar and accomplish the same end result if the procedure actually works.
Thanks in advance for any comments!
Jerry

Personal experience, it can work. Certain types of paint are subject to lifting thus a repaint is necessary.🛠

Depending on the dent....I have used the hand held gizmo's glass installers use. I've popped many dents out with one over the years. (yeah, some I couldn't get out)

it will work on a "gentle" dent with no metal stretching or creasing - it doesn't work miracles. its worth a try

Not answering the subject question and of course not knowing the dent's location, this may be useless info, but I've had good luck popping door and some fender dents using inflatable items. Soccer balls or kids basket balls. If there's sufficient structure behind the dent to back the inflatable it can work great. Several kits on the market as well with pneumatic bladders.

When I ran a high school body shop we used that procedure pretty effectively. Once the ball is inflated a little, tapping around the perimeter of the dent with a flat hammer helps eliminate creases. Some of the videos I've watched concerning the "paintless" process employ the same technique, using a rawhide mallet or a rubber hammer. A text on metal bumping I taught from frequently was written in the mid-1930's, and included lots of techniques for metal finishing that minimized the need to use lead for final finishing. Bondo was still a couple of decades in the future when that book was written.
Jerry

I watched a traveling paintless dent remover guy push out many hail storm dents on a truck roof while the rest of us were dove hunting. He had long handled tools with bends near the end and were tipped with what looked like a ball bearing. Super polished.
After he had most of the dent pushed out, he said, "Hold my beer, you're going to like this part." He then pulled out a body hammer with a mirror-finish face and proceeded to lightly hammer on the paint while continuing to push out with tool. It did not harm the paint whatsoever. When he was done, you could not see any dents nor paint damage.

PDR works great on the new stuff not to surer on old iron. Repainted vehicles can be tricky as the paint may crack.

OK- - - - -got the essential bits and pieces to make up my own PDR kit, for a fraction of what the ones on Ebay are selling for. Hot glue, angle iron, fender washers, and 1/4-20 flat head screws make up the basic components. I'll glue a screw and washer to the body panel, then use the angle iron with a series of holes drilled in it as a lever to lift the dent. A small square of plywood under the end of the angle iron will spread out the load at the fulcrum end of the lever. The hot melt glue gets released with alcohol, hopefully with no damage to the paint. If things work as planned, I'll write up a report on how it goes. The vehicles I'm experimenting on don't have enough value to worry about making a few mistakes- - - -any improvement at all will be welcome.
Jerry

Sound plan, looking forward to the results. My wife's new truck (back in '15) was foolishly parked under a boisD'arc tree in July when it was new. Luckily the two boisD'arc apples hit the roof. I've tried to pop the dents out with a can of air with Freon (or propane) as the propellant/cooling agent in direct, hot sunlight without much luck. Your system might just be the ticket. The good news is 3/4 ton, 4X4s these days are so tall that the only ones that see the dent are class 8 truckers and they've never criticized.

I watched a fellow around 1967 remove several hail dents with dry ice in a relatively new Nova...body shop at a dealership. He parked the car in full midday sun for a couple of hours then broke his dry ice into pieces about the size of grapes. He then put a piece of dry ice into each dent and within a few seconds most of them popped out. He said sometimes it took a couple of tries, but added he could get all but the really large ones out that way.

You can buy dry ice in pellet form. I'm building a plant now.

Where can you buy dry ice?
My parents would get a block of it when we went on vacation and took frozen meat in a separate cooler.
That Ice in a good cooler would last about a week.

Don

Don, if you have a CO2 fire extinguisher and a pillow case or athletic sock you can make it yourself in a blink. Tape the pillow case over the extinguisher's nozzle, open the extinguisher for a few seconds and you'll have dry ice in the pillow case or sock when you remove it. The pillow case/sock is just there to let the gas escape and leave the solid behind. But it will be much cheaper to purchase it already made.

Supermarkets sell it here out of what looks like a chest type freezer serviced by some dealer downtown or in Ft. Worth. Last I looked you could get a block or you could buy a sack of pieces at $1.50 per pound. El Rancho, Tom Thumb, Kroger, Fiesta Mart, Wal-Mart, Costco, etc. I don't believe as much is bought around here as in more remote places, however. When I grew up it was very common to get it at the locker plant or the ice house and people living out on ranches would get some every week. Especially during hunting season. The locker plant supplied the schools with what they needed (field trips, science classes, halloween carnival, things like that). They had metal coolers and they were always using it for something. I'm certain the ice houses here (and probably where you live) sell it in bulk.

Thanks Jon!
I'll ask the wife to check into the walmart supply.
She has worked there for over 35 years and can get a inside scoop.

Thanks
Don

PS: don't tell anyone, it's for my old F-250.

If they don't have it for sale, have her ask the produce manager at Wal-Mart or any grocery store. Almost all of them keep dry ice for their own use and if you aren't abusive, they're usually happy to give you some.

If you google Continental Carbonic They should be able to tell you who they deliver to in your area. If you keep the air off of it it will last much longer. Do not put it in an airtight container it could explode. Also do not touch it. It will burn you. Temp. -110 F

This is my experience too. I bought one of those kits that use the plastic pull rods (that break after a few uses) and was able to pull out the small 1/2" door dings fairly well, but it was all done on newer vehicles with thinner gauge metal. I seriously doubt the glue-pull method would work on the old iron. It seems like most of the sheet metal could be accesses from behind on the old vehicles so the rods could used instead. Far better results from behind.

The old-school body repair I taught occasionally during my career in public education made use of "pick tools"- - - -curved steel pry bars used to raise dents in areas not directly accessible to hammer and dolly work. A combination of the glue-on pull rods and some gentle massaging from the back side seems like the best approach to raising dents without disturbing the painted surface, as long as there's no sharp creases and/or paint scratches involved. Like with any other mechanical or sheet metal procedure, I'm sure there's no substitute for plenty of hands-on experience.
Jerry