well my roof has a serious amount of small dings that i never really dealt with..as im not sure how to fill them properly..i think body filler is the only way, they are very small but lots of them..too small to dolly out. it really looks as if a 400pounder was stuck on my roof on there back and kept elbowing it trying to get up..so how can i do this..pour filler all over it and use some large peice of something somewhat flexible to drag across it to fill the small holes and keep the contour of the roof line, then block sand till the end of time? i am by no means a professional body man but i am debating painting my car black with white GT stripes instead of orange again, and i know for sure these small dings will stand right out if the car is black. so for the body guys out there, how would you attempt this?
My roof is my proudest part of my car. I know what it looked like before. It had hail damage. A lot of shallow dings. Skimmed the whole roof basically and boarded it off. took a couple of skims but we got it dam perfect in the end. My friend/body man used an air board. makes quick work of it but my god what a mess. We coated the entire body shop in a layer off dust. I couldnt imagine doing it all by hand. It was hard enough using the air board for the heavy stuff. I spent a lot of time blocking by hand in the final stages. Not alot of choices to fix that kind of damage on the roof. You really need to know what you are doing though to skim a panel like that. Last thing you want is for the filler not to bond properly. We ended up with very little filler left on the roof. Just enough to hide the low spots like it should be. Boarding can be tricky on a large panel also. Takes experience.
I had a couple of door dings taken out of my truck last year by a local dentless removal guy...........did a fantastic job and he said they were a 9 out of 10.............10 being the worst possible. I have seen this type of system used before with a lot of success..............but have no idea what the cost would be or how much it would cost to buy the equipment............................. http://www.denttoolsdirectusa.com/index.php?l=product_list&c=10&gclid=CN_nrPL6p7QCFUlxQgodVmEA3w
HAd our dent guy look at my roof first. He couldnt get to the larger ones due to the roof structure. The rest he said were to shallow and too many. This guy is amazing though the dents he can remove. ITs pretty cheap. HE spent 2 hours on my buddies BMW. 100 bucks. Well worth it if you saw the panels he saved.
i have an air board..and i think a few coats of high build might fill a few, but i think it will come down to a layer of filler and sanding, i'm just afraid of ending up with too much filler and a funny shaped roof lol. those dent pullers you linked me to there John seem a little pricey, some long hours sanding will get me the same result i hope. before i throw filler on this i will be attempting to dolly a couple a little smaller, or out completely...also what grit should i take it down with to make sure it bites very good, 36 grit?
that would be decent for stripping paint.. but not anything close to what's needed for putty related surface prep. 50-80 grit should be more than enough and ALWAYS solvent wipe while continually folding the cloth/paper towels to expose fresh area to avoid smearing contaminants around. Naptha is cheap enough but I prefer Acetone for bare metal prep.
No point in cheeping out on solvent when you want something to last, hopefully I can get down and grab a roll of paper for my air board..I always thought a real heavy grit was good for filler.. Not needed I guess. I'll also check into that stuff this weekend Joe, seems like it may be the thing for me. Going to pull the window trim and windows this weekend I hope, then I can get sanding.
