Today we are starting body line dings and then working on bigger and deeper ones. As the PDR training becomes more challenging, the more Josue advances his learning curve.
This post is about Dan Ontrop’s last and big paintless dent repair he did. It was his last day and he wanted to test himself on what he learned from the previous weeks.
I have a specific and a solid way I teach my pdr students so they can break big dents down into smaller and more manageable repairs. It’s all about recognition after a pdr student understands the fundamentals of paintless dent repair. Recognizing high spots, crowns, knocking down, pin pointing and knowing how to finish will drastically improve the overall results of a pdr repair. Keeping your dent clean is the most important. If you have miss-pushes everywhere, the dent becomes unreadable and real chewy. A lost cause and then the frustration begins to build.
I was working on this dent at about 3:30 in the afternoon. It took a little longer than expected because there was a brace structure half way against the dent. It still turned out fine but was more challenging than I would have liked. But then again that is pdr for you. Here are some iPhone video clips how the repair looked before and after. It’s my run n gun video so please don’t be disappointed because lately I have not busted out the good camera rigs.
This dent took about an hour and 15 minutes and I charged $275. Yes considering this took me less than an hour and a half, some people would get upset. Some of my customers questions the cost vs. the time it took me to repair a dent. I have to remind them politely that a dent repair like this really didn’t take me an hour and half. It really took me 19 years. The truth is, would you rather have someone know what they are doing who is experienced and can do a repair in a timely manor or have a person who does not know what they are doing and take all day without the same outcome? I don’t charge by the hour, instead, I charge in regards to the experience it will take me to remove the dent.
I decided to put together a quick and easy video slide show together. I was looking through my past repairs and thought I would put together some of my favorite pdr dent repairs. Each pdr repair has a little story about it and I learned a ton from each one of these repairs. The ones that look less complex were actually the most challenging and some were definitely as hard as they looked.
Check out our dentrepairsandiego.com site as well as DentTime.com. Take care1
Lately I have been doing lots of training and it has been hard for me to post often. So when I get a chance, I like to post what I think is important. Especially to those who are interested in pdr training. Again, paintless dent repair / removal training is not easy to learn. And if you don’t have the patience in general, then save yourself a lot frustration and don’t get into pdr. I don’t mean to discourage you but there are too many so called schools out there who promise the world but in the end, say, “you got to practice.” But if you leave confused and not making progress, then how can you measure what is right and what is wrong pdr training? This is why I am posting real people with real experiences.
Anyhow, now that I put my two cents in, here is a quick video I did with Mitch Hawthorn who is attending my one on one pdr training. Through out the month you will see updates and his progress. Please email me if you have any questions or simply comment below.
Thanks!
Myke Toledo
http://cdn.smugmug.com/ria/ShizVidz-2009090604.swf