Remember when we used to hammer out dents by hand?

Back in the late 90s at my first shop in Cleveland, I spent hours with a hammer and dolly on every door ding. Now with my stud welder and slide hammer I can pull a dent in under 10 minutes flat. Does anyone still do it the old way or am I just getting too comfortable with the tools?

3 comments

3 Comments

grays131mo ago

Man yeah I still break out the hammer and dolly on some jobs. There's something about feeling the metal move under your hand that you just don't get with a stud welder. Plus on bigger dents where the metal's already stretched, the old tools give you way more control without burning through the paint.

the_lisa1mo ago

Oh boy, this is exactly the kind of thing I've been going back and forth on in my own head. I get what you're saying about the feel of it, but here's what I've been wondering: does that extra control really matter on modern thin sheet metal, or are we just fighting the car's design by going old school? I've had times where the hammer and dolly felt like I was chasing a ghost on a quarter panel that was already too flimsy. How do you decide when to put down the traditional tools and just go with the stud welder?

hannah4001mo ago

Got a '68 Mustang in here last week where the rear quarter was so stretched from a parking lot ding that the hammer just bounced off it like a drum. @the_lisa, I actually put the dolly down and grabbed the stud welder halfway through because the metal was acting more like a trampoline than something I could shape. Sometimes modern tools save your sanity on modern metal, and that's just how it goes.