Can I get dings and dents out of aluminum?

[themechanic]

I have a trunk finish panel from a 1969 Coronet 500, R/T with a few dings and one large dent in the painted area.

Is it difficult to get dings and dents out of an aluminum trunk finish panel?

Thanks FBBO

 

[Beekeeper]

It's easier than stainless! You just gotta massage them out the best you can and sand the surface smooth again. You gonna need to remove the anodizing and polish the whole panel
to make it look good.

 

[Mike67]

Reach out to 5.7Hemi..

 

[68GTXNH]

Naaa anything ferrous is waaaaayyyy easier to form then dented aluminum, dented aluminum takes skill amd finesse amd a light hand. Steel or stainless you can beat the hell out of it. If you go too far, just beat it back. Warning though, i just formed a thin aluminum plenum at work yesterday. Basically a curled bell shape about 20in in diameter. Which involved a few hours hammering over a form. You cant work aluminum unless you anneal first. Steel has memory you bend it you can bend it back. Aluminum doesnt. You bend it(like a dent) and bend it back, it WILL crack. So get it nice and toasty first and let it slowly cool. Start with a blow torch with the flame as low as it will go get it warm then turn up the torch a little. Get it nice and warm. Dont melt it. At work i use an oven but hit about 775f. Keep it warm a few minutes. Then remove the heat but kiss it with the torch again every few seconds. Making the time frame longer between kissing it each time. To slowly cool it. Then it should be nice and flexible.(google it) Trace out a piece of cardboard to match the curve, transfer it to a 2x4 and sand the piece to fit the shape its supposed to be in a clean spot on the finish panel, then using a dead blow hammer (not metal thatll just add a ton of dings to grind out) form the dent to the 2x4 sand it and polish it, then it should look just like rest of the panel. But if you start hammering it out without annealing it itll probabably crack right in the deepest part of the dent.

 

[68GTXNH]

I have a trunk finish panel from a 1969 Coronet 500, R/T with a few dings and one large dent in the painted area.

Is it difficult to get dings and dents out of an aluminum trunk finish panel?

Thanks FBBO

View attachment 400765 View attachment 400766

Also one of those looks cracked already. May need to tig those up anyways

 

[themechanic]

Also one of those looks cracked already. May need to tig those up anyways

It's creased on one side but not cracked through.

 

[68GTXNH]

Ill post some pics tomorrow of the piece i was talking about making at work. Youll see the curl i had to put in it and know right away the value in annealing. Haha

It's creased on one side but not cracked through.

The crease is where it will crack. If its annealed, If you take your time. Very small hits. Slowly massge it out. It should be fine. But a crease is tricky with aluminim as it already damamged. I bet if you look really close the surface of the metal roght at the crease is crackled. Probsbly looks like the creases in you hands when they are dirty. Clean aluminum deep in the crease and dirty st the surface. If it does crack youll have to tig it up and then clean up the bead. Make it big so theres plenty to work down to the surface you want without dips to fill along the edges. aluminum doesnt grind well though, it gums up abrasives, like carbide burrs on a die grinder and flap discs. Use very coarse like 36 grit at low speed, a dynafile(air mini belt sander) works the best. Then step up sand paper grits until every scratch is gone from the previous grit. DAs work great at first. You can polish welded aluminum to look like a mirror. Youll hve to polish it good though, itll be impossible to match the weld bead (even if you had the exact sane metal as filler rod) to the original, age and oxygen changes aluminum like sun does to dark vinyl siding. Replace a piece with the same batch just a few months later and itll be a totally different color

 

[Superb Bee]

I wish you were closer I have everything set up right now to do some tail panels, the trick like most jobs is the tools.

With aluminum I like to change my cabinet over to soda, blast them clean, wash them off and see where i am.

once that is done there is a tool called the papa dent, that is simply the ned all to trim repair tools, also I have a nice set of jewelers hammers but on aluminum they are not great.
http://www.papadent.com/index.php

Next you need sand paper some paint sticks to use as blocks, some files, some black spray paint, a heat gun, some dolls and body hammers are nice to have, and a lot of patience.

I would start with the panel buy getting it as straight as I can looks like a lot of stretching happened so to reverse that takes time and patience, I like to warm the aluminum with the heat gun (not hot but warm), then start tinkering no real impact just a lot of massaging and forming.

when its close if it didn't crack I would then put a guide coat and block sand to see where I was high or low, and continue to dobble it flat, I will spray it with the contrast coat 10 times until it just needs some filing.

After all that is done if it still didn't crack, I clean off the paint, polish the entire piece, then coat it with a clear coating from por, it works very well, its called pc clear and there is a prewash with it AP something I forget the number. looks anodized when you are done and you never have to polish it again.

Im gonna do 4 tail panels next week Ill take some pictures. if you are doing one panel, may be worth just sending it out, but last time I sent a super bee panel out for brite work it was $800!!! Insane money but that car had to be perfect, and it was for that $800 lol..


also if it cracks, not the end of the world, it can be soldered up, I found some aluminum solder that melts at around 350, it works and polished up pretty good..

I just noticed thats an rt panel, thats even easier to fix, they are painted black, mud the thing, lol.. use USC all metal filler works great on tail panels.