Simple Dent Repair Tips for Beginners in Santa Cruz

So you had a small “accident”. Good thing you are OK but it seems like your car isn’t. Nothing too serious though. Just a couple of dents.

Oh wait. Did you say dents?

That means dent repair fees again. Well, I personally believe that getting an expert should be your first priority in times of need. This doesn’t mean that you can’t do a repair yourself. Home dent repair can be done if you have the right tools and skills. Here are some dent repair tips for people who have the minimum development skills required. This means that you can repair minor dents yourself in the comfort of your own garage.

Do-It-Yourself Dent Repair

Wash the car

After the accident, your car might end up a bit dirty so you should first give it a good wash. The thing to note though is that you should use regular dishwashing soap instead of car soap. This is because car soap leaves behind some wax and silicone that can make the process of removing a dent difficult. Remember that you need to make sure that you strip all the wax off of the dent surface to minimize any problems.

Remove Remaining Grease and Wax

If you still have wax and grease on the dented area after a thorough wash, you might as well resort to using a standard grease remover to do the job for you. If you don’t have any grease remover in your garage, a mixture of warm water and lemon juice can do the trick.

Get the Right Tools

When doing auto dent repair, your skill can only be as good as the tools you have. Check the dent and see how it is situated. If you have access to both sides of the dent then a team-up of a dolly and hammer will be your weapons of choice. If you only have access to one side of the dent then you might want to use a stud welder gun. All of these tools can be bought at your nearest hardware store in case you don’t already have them in your garage.

First In, First Out

In repairing dents, you should follow the golden rule. The golden rule says, “First in, first out”. This means that you should start repairing the dent that happened last and work your way to the first dent. The idea is to reverse the sequence in which your car took a hit.

Filler

Once you have straightened out most of the dent, you can now move on to using a filler. A body filler is applied directly to the surface of the car so you need to remove any form of coating it once had. To do that, you might need to sand or grind the surface. Just make sure you don’t grind too much of the metal.

Advance Tips: Heat Shrinking

Heat shrinking is considered an advanced move but any beginner who knows what he/she is doing can do it. The idea is to shrink the metal slightly through a cold object (like ice cubes). Sometimes, you might need to use a torch first to heat and expand the metal and apply ice to cool it off right away. The only problem here is that you might end up destroying the metal itself when you can’t gauge if the application of heat is already too much.