1964 Chevelle - Metal Mashing

According to legend, "there is more than one way to skin a cat." But does anyone really know how to skin a cat and the various methods? Even more disturbing, why are cats being skinned to begin with? When it comes to auto body techniques the same "skinning a cat" saying can be applied to metal finishing techniques as well. When it comes to metal finishing, you might get three different opinions from four different body guys. And what's more, they may all yield the same results, those being a smoothed metal surface ready for prep and paint.

The method that we employed in pulling the dent in this '64 Chevelle is the industry standard practice. Once again we found ourselves at Harrison's Restorations, where Roy Landgrave, an autobody instructor at a local high school, gave us the straight dope on metal work. With 10 years under his belt as an instructor, Roy kept emphasizing that patience and a disciplined approach will do the job right the first time. It's hard to tell from a few photos, but from start to finish the methods that were demonstrated took about four hours to complete. And this was only one dent using one method. If you have a few to repair, count on taking several hours for each dent. Now let's get busy, shall we?

Tools of the trade: We used this nail gun/stud gun in our dent removal process. The nail gun is one of the preferred tools of the trade when it comes to dent removal. Besides the nail gun, a slide hammer that physically holds the nail is used to make pulls. Without the slide hammer a nail gun is useless. Next is a pick hammer or a metal refinishing hammer. Any experienced body man will tell you to avoid using the cheaper body tools. If you were to use these tools everyday, we'd agree. Since many of us are not body men, a less expensive set should work just fine in the home garage.		The dent in the rocker panel is a bit difficult to see in the photograph.
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.	The first step in repairing this dent or any dent, is to remove all paint and primer from the metal's surface. The stud gun spot-welds the nail to the surface of the metal. If any paint is present, it obviously won't work.	After sanding the paint away, the red circles in this photograph illustrate the ridgeline in the dent. It's this ridgeline that physically keeps the low spot in the metal.
The next procedure is to spot weld a nail/stud to the metals surface.	A novice metal worker may be tempted to start at the lowest spot (usually in the middle) in the dent. Any experienced body man will tell you that starting at the outside or edge of the dent is the preferred method. Pulling a dent from the outside in, will avoid any high spots, high spots are the enemy and can literally stretch the metal, making it thinner.