How To Repair Dents Paintless

How to Practice Paintless Dent Repair

Past

Ryan Dube

Ryan has 20+ years of experience working professionally equally an online writer and an editor.

What Is Paintless Paring Repair?

Throughout the 1990s, automotive paints and vehicle body materials were high quality and much more than resilient to bending. Since both the paint and the trunk could be bent without meaning damage to the paint or permanent damage to the trunk materials, an entire industry formed based effectually the concept and technology of repairing dents.

PDR is a specialized course of autobody repair where technicians utilize special tools and techniques to slowly reduce a dent downwardly in size until it completely disappears.

Learning How to Do Paintless Paring Repair

PDR is a learned skill. Through trial and error, technicians gradually begin to understand the specific areas of a dent to manipulate, exactly how to manipulate certain locations of a dent, and the specialized processes and technologies used to remove a paring without the demand to repaint the area.

If you are considering learning the skill of how to do paintless dent repair, information technology'due south important to sympathise that information technology isn't only a matter of "popping" a dent out and expecting that the body will exist perfect again. PDR involves a very slow and methodical procedure that requires special tools, a certain level of knowledge and skill, and a great deal of patience. Some paring repairs, even on pocket-size dents, can take up to two hours.

Assess the Damage

The first pace to performing a paring repair without using pigment involves assessing the paring itself and determining if a paintless dent repair is even possible. Co-ordinate to virtually experts, eighty to 90 pct of dents tin can be repaired using PDR techniques. However, there are a certain percentage of dents that are incommunicable to repair without post-obit it up with a pigment job. The following types of dents usually fall into this "non-PDR" category:

Very deep dents - Even very large dents can be repaired using PDR if the paring is adequately shallow. However, if a dent of any size is pushed in too far, the metal can't be aptitude back into place without damaging the paint and requiring repainting.
Dents near edges - If a dent of whatsoever size is situated virtually the very edge of a trunk panel or near a seam, PDR repair may be impossible. The reason for this is that in order to repair a paring using these techniques, you need to admission the back side of the dent.
The dent has a crease - If in that location is a sharp crease (like a folded page) in the dent, PDR likely will not work.
Older vehicles - If your vehicle is older than 1990 or is a classic car, the odds are good that attempting paintless repair techniques on a paring will damage the pigment. This is because the paint quality on older trunk panels can't withstand the strain of the repair techniques.
Paint damage - If there is existing pigment damage in the dent (ordinarily on the border of the center), so at that place's no getting around the fact that you'll demand to repaint the area.

In one case you've gone through this checklist and determined that using paintless dent repair is possible in your particular example, then you lot're ready to take on the job using these specialized techniques.

Prepare the Area

Virtually every repair using these methods requires that you lot access the back side of the dent. The process will besides require special tools and supplies (see the resource below to guild your own supplies). In order to admission the back of any dent, you'll demand to determine the path that you tin can accept. This might crave removing interior panels within your car, or removing parts of the body on the exterior of your vehicle. Determine how to remove those panels, and so carefully remove them using the proper tools. At present that you have access to both sides of the dent, yous're ready to perform the dent repair.

Perform the Repair

This is the part of the repair that takes fourth dimension and experience to perfect. When you lodge your supplies, make sure to purchase a technicians instruction manual that will walk you through the specific areas of the dent that you'll need to wait for and how to identify each of the tools before you kickoff applying irksome pressure to the dent. In general, the way the procedure works is as follows:

You tin can use fluorescent lighting or special light boards to create shadows in the dent which tell you lot precisely where you tin can place the tools on the back side of the dent.
Tools are positioned behind the paring, and sometimes special gum can be applied to the front of the damaged area then that force per unit area can exist carefully applied to both the front and back of the area.
You then slowly manipulate the outer edge of the paring until the area bends back level with the surface. After slow and methodical work around the outer border of the dent, the size of the dent gradually shrinks until it somewhen completely disappears.

Finding PDR Tools and Supplies

In gild to go through the process correctly, you lot'll demand the right tools. The post-obit suppliers offer high quality PDR supplies and instructional materials:

Ultra Dent Tools
Right Look
Eastwood

Concluding Words

If you are interested in learning how to do paintless dent repair, brand sure that you have the time to gather the right tools and supplies, learn virtually the detailed process of PDR, and so spend time practicing your own repair techniques on metal panels from the local junk yard before you start doing repairs on your own vehicles.