1964 Chevelle - Metal Mashing

And here is where the bullet hits the bone, so to speak. The slide hammer is attached to the nail and a few light raps are all that is needed. The temptation to yank the dent with heavy blows on the slide hammer can be over powering. Resist the urge to try and pull the dent all at once. Like we said, high spots can occur as a result and that would negate all our hard work.

The dent in the rocker panel is a bit difficult to see in the photograph, however when a straight edge is held up to it, the dent becomes quite visible. The metal in this area of the vehicle is of a heavier gauge so a bit more work will be needed to pull this particular dent.

Once that particular area has been worked the nail is removed. Roy showed us his preferred technique. Using a pair of needle nose vice grips he twists the stud at its base until it breaks loose. Some guys snip the stud then grind the stump. That requires more work than necessary; it's easier to just twist it off.

This photo illustrates just one phase of the work that was put into pulling this dent. Notice the black spots? This is where the studs/nails were spot welded and pulled. The black marker illustrates the ridgeline we have been speaking of. A dozen or more rounds with the stud gun and hammer will get us where we want to be.

Using a stir stick as our straight edge, we checked the progress of our dent pulling adventure. It's not nearly as bad as it used to be. Another dozen rounds or so with the nail gun are repeated and we are finished and on to the next step. Besides using a stir stick to measure our progress, nothing beats using your hands. The human hand is one of the best tools of all. Running your hand across the dent several times after every pull is a sure fire way to figure out the highs and lows while measuring your progress.

Now that the body filler has set up, it's time to sand it all back down to an acceptable level. One of the biggest problems many people encounter is they tend to sand too much of the filler off. Once again the hand comes into play and feeling where you're at is the only way to do the job.

Now that the body filler has set up, it's time to sand it all back down to an acceptable level. One of the biggest problems many people encounter is they tend to sand too much of the filler off. Once again the hand comes into play and feeling where you're at is the only way to do the job.

When sanding, you want to achieve an affect known as "feathering". This photo illustrates how we feathered the body filler, paint and primer. Notice how one layer of paint fades into another? This is feathering. Feather or layering will avoid any low spots in the final finish of the dent pull.

We shot a high build primer onto our finished area and then covered it with an opposing color of guide coat.

Success! Four hours later we are done. The dent is pulled, filled and primered. And since we did it right, a magnet will stick to it. Nobody will ever know there use to be a dent here, except the hundreds of thousands of people reading this article.