I finally got the hang of smoothing out door dings with just a spoon and some heat

Okay, so this might sound silly, but I had this old beater come in with a shallow dent on the driver's side door. I didn't want to break out the big tools for such a small thing. I remembered seeing a video about using a hairdryer and a spoon (yes, a regular kitchen spoon) to pop dents out. I gave it a shot, heating the area slowly and pressing from behind with the spoon handle. After a few tries, the metal just clicked back into place, almost perfectly. It was such a tiny victory, but it felt awesome to fix it with stuff I had lying around. Now I keep a dedicated spoon in my toolbox for these little jobs. It's not for every dent, but for the right ones, it's a game changer.

3 comments

3 Comments

reesemiller29d ago

Worry you could mess up the paint doing it that way. Most body shops would tell you to use proper tools to avoid that.

the_ray29d ago

Professional advice rarely accounts for duct tape enthusiasm.

the_nina23d ago

That trick works great on shallow dents with no paint crease. The key is to heat the metal slowly and evenly to avoid any color change. Just keep a wet rag handy to cool the spot right after it pops.