Dang! Got my first tank dent today!

[Skunkhome]

No, I did not drop the bike, not the gz250 anyway. I was in the shed which is overfill of stuff and I stepped over the saddle and put my foot down on what I thought was the peg.....bam the $25 mountain bike that was standing next to my new toy slammed into the side of the tank. I was stepping in the peddle of the bicycle rather than the right hand peg. I took off my sunglasses and sure enough I had a nice dent just behind the "S" placard on the right side of the tank. Gosh, I hate that and from a rusty old bicycle.

Well, some years ago I bought a Twist-a-dent dent reducer that I tried in some parking lot damage with limited success. I was not sure of it was a good idea but I decided I had to give it a try.

I followed the directions and held my breath as I could see the tank flexing under the strain of the puller. Just about the time I figured I better stop the dent puller popped off as it was supposed to but it left a huge glob of hot glue that I have never seen happen before. It took me about thirty minutes to scrape the hot glue off without damaging the finish. It was so difficult that it made me shy away from trying it again even though it is recommended that you pull a dent up to ten times before quitting. Once I got the glue off I could see that the dent wse reduced by about 1/2. It no longer seems to jump out at me when I look at the tank. I may try it again but not today. I am going to try riding her as she is and see if it is slight enough that I can easily ignore it.

[blaine]

By the looks of how much the dent is reduced,I would think that one more go with the puller should eliminate the rest of the dent.
:cool:

[alantf]

How does that work? How does glue figure in a dent puller? :??:

[Skunkhome]

It is a pretty neat . It uses an apparently special formulation of hot glue that you apply to a dent puller patch which is inturn applied to the dent. You wait five minutes for the glue to cool then slip the bridge over the threaded patch stem and screw the thum screw down til the patch pops loose from the dent. I suppose the metal pulls away from the patch and glue from the edges in as the dent is pulled. The kit came with enough glue to probably use the puller a couple of hundred times. They claim you can pull dents the size of a softball by starting at 12 o'clock then 3, 6, 9 moving around the clock a quarter at a time and spiral in toward the center. For the first time ever it left a large pad of glue over the dent that I had to scrape off with a plastic scraper provided. Maybe I used too much glue. Any way I got it all off and the dent is all but gone. It is so good I may not try it again.

[Water Warrior 2]

Neat !! I have wondered now and again how those tools work. Thanks for the instructive thread and pics.

HELLO MODERATOR: We could use this in a How To..............................please.