The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop How to remove dents?

Would someone please explain to me how to remove these dents? I would like to work this fender back into shape.

I would be inclined to beat the dent out from the rear with a big hammer and a large block of wood. Maybe there's a better way?

I would like to remove the creases that remain. Perhaps someone could walk me through it. Thanks.

put down the hammer and step back for a minute, let's not make it worse
General rule is to work backwards from how the damage occurred.
Those big dents were pushed in, try to push them back out with something big and rounded. Don't make new dents
Once you get the big dents pushed back you can address the smaller dents.
When hammering there are two techniques On Dolly and Off Dolly

On Dolly you are backing up the metal directly behind the hammer blow and you will stretch the metal (don't do this unless you mean to)

Off Dolly the dolly is backing the low areas while you beat the high side down. Stop before you sandwich the metal between the hammer and dolly

Keep working your way down to smaller and smaller defects

Wear hearing protection, be patient, trust what your hand tells you is smooth
Good luck
Chuck

Resist the urge to pound away at the center of the dents. Start at the edges and work your way toward the center, using a dolly block or maybe a heavy block of wood to brace the metal as you gently tap the edges of the dent outward. Be patient, and remember that the metal has a "memory"- - - -it wants to go back to its original shape. There are three basic shapes that form all body panels- - - -"crowns", "ridges", and "flanges". The dented areas you're dealing with are mostly of the crown variety- - - -a flat piece of metal that has been stamped in a big press and stretched into a curved surface. You're trying to coax it back to its original shape, without stretching the metal further than it was originally. Sometimes that's impossible to do, as the bending force that caused the dent has stretched the metal beyond its ability to resume its original shape. As it approaches that shape, the dented area will begin to spring in and out, a problem known as "oil canning", named after the old-time hand-held oiler with a stretched bottom that allowed someone to squirt a small volume of oil out of the tip. To repair a springy surface it might be necessary to shrink the metal by heating a small spot red hot with a fine-tipped acetyline torch and then quenching it with a water-soaked rag. That's a skill that's developed over long-time experience. There's not much way to teach the process, so practice on a piece of scrap before trying it on a part you can't replace.

Once the metal is close to its original shape, a process called "metal finishing" is used to fine tune the surface. The contour is filed or scuffed with a sander, and high and low spots can be raised or lowered by careful metal bumping to achieve a smooth surface. A properly straightened and metal-finished part shouldn't require more than a thin skim coat of body filler, or possibly none at all, before being primed and painted. Have fun!
Jerry

Looking at the condition of that fender, I believe that you can skip practicing on scrap metal. Those are so badly damaged that I can barely tell what they go on. The only clue is the two rivets for the rear fender support bracket. Your labor is free, so you have all of the time in the world to spend on that fender. If you can't get it to straighten out and end up making it worse, you won't be out much at all. There are better used fenders available which are much easier to make nice.
I still encourage you to give this fender a try. You will learn a lot about sheet metal work. You have received a lot of the information which you need to work a dented fender.
Go for it!

Those dents really aren't that bad- - - - -I've repaired much worse. The only area that would concern me would be those deep creases- - - -he might have to do a little cutting and patching there. There are no torn spots, or rusted-through places to worry about. A little hammer and dolly work and some metal finishing would make a big difference in how that looks.
Jerry

I used all the above suggestions and made it fairly straight.

Looks like there's a large tear that's been welded. Or it might be a crease. There is one spot that might need some shrinking up near the top of that large dent - looks like someone hit it with a piece of pipe.
Otherwise, they're not all that bad. I wouldn't be afraid of straightening them.

To the OP: Pick up a good quality body hammer and an all purpose dolly (aka railroad dolly). Your average ball pein hammer isn't the proper tool for body work. Even something from Harbor Freight would work better than the ball pein you have.
You shouldn't be smacking the fender with all you have, but as suggested, back it up with the dolly and work it easy and slow. It has to go back into shape the way it went out of shape.
Go to Youtube and check out some videos.

Thanks kindly for the responses and the encouragement. So if I understand correctly I can work this out with just a hammer and dolly?

No matter what happens, this fender will be much better than the one on the truck now.

I believe so. You can use the railroad dolly by hand to rough out the dent from the back side, but you need to be careful about hitting with too much force in the wrong place. I recommend the railroad dolly because it has high crown, low crown and flat surfaces that are used in various ways.

That is the answer to your question.





What stage are you at now? Did you get the big dent shaped? Are you wanting to do a little dent? As Chuck said, use a big object like a basketball pushed/pounded. For a mostly "pop out" dent, I take stuff like that out to the grass, with soft soil beneath, and use the earth as a dolly. Use rounded off timber or something big so you don't make a bunch of dings.

As far as after that, the smaller dents are worked with curved dollies and hammers. You can hammer with a dolly. At this stage you go REAL SLOW and REAL LIGHT BLOWS. REAL LIGHT BLOWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!......taps at the end. Takes time and feeling the metal as you go, every few hits. Use anything and everything around the property/junk pile/tools that fits the curve. It's only Rocket Science if you are building a Rocket.

That is some great work on the very first fender you ever worked on there, Wayne.

If it were my fender, I would find a soft place somewhere on the ground. Place my foot somewhere not in the center of the dent, and transfer my weight to that foot. If things didn't move, maybe I'd bounce a little. That's my starting point. Way before I thought about a hammer of some type.

MNSmith read my mind. You might also try elevating the fender with a couple of 2’ long 4x4’s placed just outside the large dent, the press gingerly with your foot. Maybe bounce as MNSmith suggested.

Using an arbor press for dent removal.










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Update: the dent mostly came out with the fender on the ground and a push with the foot, just like Mark said. I did about 2 hours work with the hammer-off dolly and it's pretty close I think. But there a few pock marks and a bit of a crease remains. Is this where the hammer-on dolly comes in for finishing?

The fender is close to normal shape, where at this stage I'd be comfortable applying body putty.

Well, look at you! You’re now a body man! Good job.🛠

Well done grasshopper.

Good Job.
I'd spend a little more time working on those small spots before going with body filler. Get a block of wood and glue some sandpaper on it, and gently scrub to find high spots. Work those with the dolly on the low spots and the hammer on the high spots. Try not to do too much on-dolly hammering or you'll wind up stretching the metal.

After doing what Kevin suggested, I would get the fenders sandblasted to bare metal and paint with epoxy primer before applying filler.

We found that most of the rust was in the flange where fenders bolts to the box sides. The rusted out areas had to be patched. I made a plywood template using the holes in the box sides as a guide. Bolted the fender to the template to make sure that the fender didn't get out of shape as I was working on it. Used the same template for both sides.

OK- - - -you've got it roughed out- - - -now start the metal finishing process. Tack a piece of 80 grit sandpaper to a piece of 2X4 about a foot long, and scuff the surface of the metal to show up high and low spots. Bump the high spots down with a flat-faced body hammer, and use one with a slightly rounded contour to raise the low areas. Don't pound- - - -tap gently. When the surface of the metal is pretty much scuffed bright all over, spray a thin "guide coat" of cheap rattle can primer all over and switch to finer grit sandpaper, maybe 120 or so. Pretty soon you'll get to the point that very little body filler, if any at all is needed before you apply some sort of high-build primer and continue the smoothing process- - - -sand- - -prime- - - sand- - -etc. By switching to progressively finer grits of sandpaper, each thin prime coat will fill the scratches left behind by the block sanding. That's how we did it back when lacquer was the paint of choice, and the surfaces had to be glass-smooth before several coats of paint were applied, and then hand-rubbed.
Jerry

Wow,great advice on this thread, I couldn't have imagined that good advice given by Hot Rod and others could have actually transferred to these kind of results. If I can ad my 2 cents I would bolt fenders back on before I was satisfied, checking that they still look good and fit relaxed. Many veteran techs would have abandoned these fenders,Pat

If you have any high spots (stretched areas) from your efforts, a crowned panel like that responds fairly well using a donut dolly on the inside, flat body hammer on the outside..







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