There are instances where the body shop had already repaired and painted the damaged door. But then they discover that there is a slight dent crease without a wheel arch. So rather than get the vehicle repaired and painted again it is decided to have the dent out using paintless dent removal. It is great from a retail point of view and obviously for car sales and body repairs.

Steps in Removing Crease

STEP1

Removing a crease requires an initial assessment of how long it is. For this kind of repair, you need to use a simple bent or an old-fashioned triangle handle. It has to have an easy grip and a fairly soft round tip on the end so it can give you enough leverage. To soften the tip you need to put a little bit of tape on the end like duct tape or gorilla tape and wrap around its end. This will allow you to work quickly and push out a lot of dents.

STEP 2

Take a closer look at the dent. Get the bar and start right behind the back of it from the furthest to the edge. Gently get it back towards the crease line and then come back. If the panel is cold to touch, use a trusty hair dryer to warm the panel. This is just to make that paint a bit more acceptable to pressure to reduce the risk of cracking the paint. 

STEP 3

A high spot or ridge or crown just above the crease means that you need to start tapping that down fast. Using your tool and your hand makes a few gentle pushes. See how easy it will move the metal out. Use enough pressure to push the dent without creating high spots. As you can see this technique involves a bit of tapping down on the ridged crown and then applying pressure underneath. Take out the dent and work on the crease. As you go through the edge  put a bit more rigidity back into the panel. 

STEP 4

Now you need to switch tools and use a hockey stick bar generally designed for getting inside doors and doing that door ding repair. It just got the right angle to get into the arch and then be able to get the tip right into the panel. You need enough pressure to basically push it back out again.

STEP 5

This time move your head around quite a lot and go across the lines just to make sure you are on the right track. You need to cross-reference and cross-check your work. Make sure that you check it well. Remember in removing any crease it is important to check, cross-check, double-check and even triple-check that the dent is finally out now.

FINAL NOTE

Make sure that you have a good idea of those lines as you work. You can use the ‘dragging technique’ which is something fairly new. This is sort of dragging the tip across where you can easily grab the paint when applying pressure and dragging the tooltip across. Apply a little bit of pressure underneath and then pull the dent bar back towards you. There are tools that are built better with a set of purposes for dragging. Be very careful to make sure you are taking out a straight line and not putting lots of high spots in creating that kind of zip effect. 

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