Swapped my old hammer and dolly for a stud welder on a rear quarter panel

Used to do all my dent work the old school way with a hammer and dolly on a 1998 Ford F-150 in my garage. Took me about 6 hours to get a rear quarter panel straight, and my arm felt like it was gonna fall off. Switched to a stud welder and slide hammer about 3 months ago after watching a guy at a shop in Columbus knock out a similar job in 90 minutes. Now I'm doing the same repair in under 2 hours, and the metal doesn't stretch as bad. Only downside is I gotta be careful not to burn through on thin sheet metal, which happened twice on a Toyota Corolla last month. Anyone else find the learning curve worth it or do you still stick with traditional tools?

2 comments

2 Comments

riley_wood8415d ago

Man, you said "the metal doesn't stretch as bad" and that's the biggest thing for me. I tried a stud welder on an old Civic hood and the pull was way more controlled. The hammer and dolly method can leave you chasing high spots all day. But I feel you on the burn through, I melted a hole in a Mazda door jam once and had to patch it with copper backing. The learning curve is 100% worth it though, especially for big flat panels. I still use a hammer for tight curves but the welder saves me hours.

mark_carr715d ago

My buddy actually read a comparison in one of the car magazines, maybe it was Car Craft or something, where they did a side by side on a dented truck roof. The stud welder pulled it back with almost no extra heat, and the hammer job needed a skim coat of filler to hide the ripples. I've got a dent in my own truck's quarter panel that I've been putting off, and I'm seriously thinking about picking up one of those cheap Harbor Freight units to try. The copper backing trick is something I keep hearing about for thin metal, I just hope I get the hang of it before I burn through something important.