Anyone like buliding cars/ hotrods/ ratrods?

[Orngrimm]

Ah... So you dont go into the metal really but just lay it bare?

[liquidhandwash]

Pretty much, I've also got to take some dents out of the roof, which is quite difficult, large flat panels often oil can, that is the dent will pop in and out because the metal has stretched. Somebody jumped on the roof before I got it so it's a bit of a mess.

[Downunder35m]

That sooo reminds of my days giving old Beetles a new lease on life.
Those replacement panel parts from Mexico were never a proper fit...
Can't even being to imagine how many hours I spend banging on metal with hammer, filling rust holes with sheet metal cuts soldered into place and filled up and more....
All, to one day in future, see beautifully restored Beetle hitting the road again instead of ending as scrap metal.
Those were the good old days I guess, from there it all kept going downhill somehow LOL

Not easy to restore some old car so it not only looks great from a distance but also great once you start to check those know areas hobby tinkers often cheat with.
But well worth doing as the result is just outstanding.
You not only seem to know what you are doing, you also seem to like doing it.
I would love to do one last Beetle just for myself but neither could I afford one in good enough condition to start with nor is my health good enough to get it done the way I used to.
So I quite appreciate what you are doing as it brings back so many good and old memories....

[liquidhandwash]

Thanks downunder, I hope to do some more work on it soon, I have been watching some Youtube videos of guys doing paintless dent removal, I absolutely amazed at the skill and results these guys get.

[Downunder35m]

I gave it try while working at a scrap yard for a short while.
When we got cars dumped off I tried to figure out ways to get some dints out like these pro guys do.
I realised some vital things LOL

You do need dedicated tools for it.
Not so much in terms of coming from a dint repair provider but in terms of shape and ways to work the handle.
I made a bunch of hardwood 'punches', wedges and rounded things in order to push, roll or just work the metal.
And as you guessed I often made it worse ROFL
But eventually I got a bit of a hang of things ....

There is two kinds of dints.
The first is just a deformation held in place by tension.
The second is the nasty one where already a permanent deformation is present.
The key is to spot the first and to treat them WITHOUT causing a permanent deformation.
Sadly that is not always possible as the added paint or shape of the spot mean you would have to work with tools from both sides at the same time.
Depending on the location it means you need a second person or some really long and weird handles you can't control anyway

But with enough failure you eventually do something right by accident....
For me it was one of these nasty and rather uneven dints from something small poking the metal.
No matter how I tried I could not make this dint go away by just mechanical means and little hand tools.
If in doubt : USE A BIGGER HAMMER!
I did not have one big enough but an angle grinder....
Cut the wider area out and took it to steel pipe with a matching radius for the curvature of the metal.
And with total disregard for the paint started bashing the crap out of it with a copper hammer.
The dint was gone and replaced by a rather ugly and more or lees wrinkled mess.
It gave me a guesstimation of how badly the metal was stretched and permanently deformed by whatever hit the car.
Also the realisation that by undirected brute force you often induce even more permanent deformation.

I know it is not always possible to do so but I found a workaround eventually.
Heating the metal with a blow torch until red hot to then forces the much softer metal back into a close enough shape to properly hammer out.
For the rest with these nifty hand tools you really need someone showing and teaching you as otherwise you need to work on hundreds of dints to get the feeling no video can provide.
Still kind of fun being able to do things with metal that seem impossible.