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All our cars have them - little dents in our doors or quarter panels and fenders. Some of them came from a runaway shopping cart at your local food & drug, others came from those pesky kids down the street, throwing rocks, while some came from that jackass who parked too close to you and hit your whip when he opened his door. Whatever the case, this article will help any Joe quickly and effectively fix all those small dents and dings. Before you run out and get all excited thinking that you're going to have the sickest, smoothest whip ever, try to keep in mind that bodywork takes practice and patients.

Gather your tools: stud nailer gun (spitzenagle)and slide-hammer, vixen file, 5" pnuematic grinder, filler spreader and board, small sanding block, and desired body filler; I recommend Evercoat Rage, as it's a good quality filler and is also pin-hole free.
once you've picked out your dent begin by holding our vixen file horizontally to the ground and in keeping the file horizontal work in an X pattern, and try to keep your work area as small as possible. Once you've done this, you should be able to see exactly how much damage is there. looks a lot bigger than the initial dent, doesn't it? much like when you throw a stone into water, the metal in your car ripples when it's impacted with something. the vixen file allows us to see damage that the normal eye couldn't see.
Our next step is to grind all the paint off our damaged area, we'll be using a 5" grinder, but a small grinder may be used also. once you've stripped the paint from the area, use your spitzenagle to weld a stud to the deepest point of the dent and use your slide-hammer to tap out the dent. The slide-hammer is attached to the nail and the sliding weight on the hammer nudges out the dent. You can also use a body hammer to help message' out the damage surrounding the actual dent. Our goal here is to pull the metal back into it's original state. a flat-edge can help here to see how much pulling you've done, and whether or not you need to pull more or that you've overpulled. If you've overpulled don't be afraid to tap the metal back in, but keep in mind the more work you do to metal, the weaker it will get.
We're getting in deep now! don't worry if you're work up until now isn't completely perfect, we just want the metal to be somewhat smooth and original. mix your filler and hardener on your filler board; about an inch ribbon of hardener to a golf-ball-sized blob of filler (hot/cold climates will effect the ration). Now, use your spreader to spread a thin layer of filler over the dent and it's surrounding damage. Take a smoke break gents, time to let the filler cure.
Once the filler has cured, knock it down with your sanding block using 40-80 Grit, in the same X pattern as we used with the vixen file. Keep a close eye on your work, as at this point it's very easy to undercut your filler (undercut means you went too deep). If you do undercut, don't worry, just apply more filler and let it cure again. final sand your work with 180 grit. your work should be completely smooth when you run your hand over it. and at this point you're ready for primer! Good luck pals!

Learn more about this author, Samuel Hampton.
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