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How to repair a dent on your automotive
Dents are the most irritating damage to your car. Sometimes they are too small to give it to body shop for repairs but too visible to ignore it. These small dents are usually repaired by a method called as paintless dent repair or PDR. This method is commonly used for removing minor dents and dings from the car’s body. Although this method can not be applied, where some paint also has been scratched off.
Fortunately, we can remove these small dents if we have the right tools with us. The most common tools used for this method is a metal rod and a body pick to push the dent out. But other do-it-yourself kits in the market have different tools for removing a dent.
Here are steps to repair dent on your car:
- Firstly you have to locate the center of the dent. With a 1/8” driller, drill a hole in the center. You can also use a hot glue gun to glue a plastic adapter on the center. These guns are often included in the do-it-yourself kits available in the market.
- If you have drilled a hole in the center of the dent, thread the dent pulling tool into the hole or you can attach the dent pulling tool to the plastic circle we glued on the dent in the above step. When the dent pulling tool is placed properly on the dent, pull on it so that the dent gets pulled out and is flattened out.
- With the hammer, carefully hammer the dent while simultaneously holding the dolly firmly against back of the dent. This could require you to go underneath the car to reach the back of the dent.
- A medium grit disk is then mounted onto a drill to grind the paint down till the metal shows which extends the dent area at least one inch around the dent. Then using the body filler, fill the complete area of the dent.
- After the dent area is completely dry, you need to sand the dent area carefully with a sand paper. Start with a 36-grit sand papar in the initial stage and slowly go up to a 120-grit sand paper.
- Next you need to prime that area. Use a spray primer to do that. Make sure you are using a primer made for specially for use on cars. There should be six coats of primer on this dent area. Allow drying time for each of the six coats.
- Again, sand this area with a 600-grit sandpaper. Make sure that the sandpaper is dry before using it. Doing this will remove any scratches that are there on the dent.
- This area should be then painted with a matching color of paint used on the car. If the area seems touched up, sand the area again and paint, until you hava a very smooth surface.
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