Introduction
To hear serious deep thought on Paintless Dent Repair and resist all change is worse than a waste of time; it is dangerous [Robert Bly: A little book on human shadows pg1].
The problem with any subject that has had little reflection and dirt roads instead of highways, its easy to loose your way. There are no signs and often you are left alone in the woods with a compass and a map. You must find your way out by charting the stars alone to find the way.
We should spend little time focusing on the why of the past. Why has there been so little thought and scholarship into PDR? The answer is a simple one after all, we are too busy moving down the well worn dirt roads to go back and erect signs, must lest pave a highway. This is my attempt to at least place road signs so new technicians who have a strong desire to learn Paintless Dent Repair
Just as with the light that can grow you as a technitian, its is important to harness the darkness within you. The very shadowy part of who you are to become the very best. This is the part of your soul that hates, gets angry, is envious, and wishes to dominate everything in your path. It is the ego that you must foster to look at damage and make a presentation
The apparent simplicity of paintless dent repair has led many new technicians into failure. On the surface it looks easy, but only if you understand how complex it really is. Many of the ideas within this book are considered advanced, but I have done my very best to make these precepts as simple as possible. This book is designed as a framework to ensure you glean the most relevant information, not only from the very first dent you push, but from all future training and repairs. The goal is that you grow into a well rounded technician. This is accomplished, not just by creating a new dialect, but by defining an old one. That is, by setting down a rosetta stone for the industry and a metanarrative. A metanarrative in this context, is simply a framework, that is, universal: so we can speak the same language, train new technicians faster, and learn from one another more succinctly. You will find, this is what we have accomplished here and it is no small feat. In relation to new technicians, it stands as a beacon and foundation when encountering new and complex damage. To the seasoned tech, its the interconnecting piece they knew was missing all along— finally giving them a voice to express what they were already thinking.
Watching a video or reading a book will never give you everything that you need for a successful career as a PDR technician. The ideas held within this book are meant to go side-by-side with real world application. Once you have mastered the contents of this book, I highly recommend you apprentice under the guidance of a qualified technician. Notice that I didn’t write, “a technician who has been doing it for a long while,”: after all, there is no correlation between how long a tech has been working and his qualification to train you. Time doing something incorrectly, is no time at all. Lets take that idea one step further by saying, “time doing something rite, without understanding how you are doing it, is no time at all.” I recommend you start with John Highly with Dent Trainer denttrainer.com.
I would also warn you of snake oil salesman within this industry. You can easily identify them by asking them to describe on paper what they are doing. In truth, these charlatans have never considered this subject very deeply, and although they have great results for themselves, they honestly don’t know how. This is the one game changing secret they never really share, not even with themselves: a deep lack of introspection into their own process. They have no idea how they wish metal into perfection, because the process became automatic years ago. These same people won’t shut up about how much they know and how you should buy something from them; this is only compounded by a generation just finding its place in social media, its sad, and over. They are not concerned with teaching you, or learning anymore themselves, must-lest examining their own process, they are concerned with their pocketbook. They will teach you just enough to justify taking your money. Many of them believe they are doing this industry a great service, just like many snake oil salesmen believed they had a cure-all, in the late 1800’s. To make matters worse, just like snake oil salesman, they have throngs of people who will swear they have the cure, but alas, its just turpentine.
When you look into a this field of study, you will find very little, in the way of scholarship. This is due to a lack of common dialect, a desire to keep it secret, and simple greed. People who want to sell what they know for profit, which is admirable; however, they don’t even know what they know, which is robbery. This fact alone should scare any logical person, hoping to enter this industry. There have been some works published but by-and-large the data is non existent, hoarded for profit by super technicians, or deemed as proprietary property for large corporations. I assure you, there is nothing super or proprietary about the process of repairing a dent, especially after we busted them out, with this work.
We have created an industry, where no one speaks the same dialect; the only way to understand the craft, with any precision, is through hands-on training. However, hands-on training has limitations; it’s a great way to learn basics, but without terminology and correct patterns of thought, the task becomes significantly more difficult. This difficulty is only compounded when a newly minted technician is left alone to repair a difficult dent. At this stage they encounter the real problems associated with perfecting a dent, it’s in this critical moment, that they alone will decide the fate of their careers. I personally remember this moment, I was working on a red door, with a crease just below the door handle. After thirty minutes of trying, I was no closer to effecting a repair. In reality, I had made the damage much worse— I was totally lost. I remember the fear, anxiety, and the humiliation, associated with that defeat; but something very important happened to me, anger. I had an experienced tech walk over to check my progress, he just laughed and walked away. I knew in that moment, I could either quit and let him win or fix this dent, come hell or high water. I did fix the dent, but I broke the door handle in the process, which ended up costing me significantly more than the dent was worth, but the customer was happy. I overheard that technician, boasting that he repaired the dent and I was responsible for taking the door handle, on and off. I channeled that anger for years, and it pushed me to become the best I could be. Regardless, I needed that win and my anger drove me to surpass the senior. I remember saying to myself and having the mantra, “I will never give up, I will endure, I will outlast”.
There is an enormous fear that exists in this industry surrounding an influx of new technicians. Especially, high quality technicians, who can perform better than the older techs, in half the initial barrier time, and are willing to work for less money. Many years later, after my “red door experience”, I learned that I wasn’t angry with him, I was angry at the fear of failure. I didn’t want to let a dent beat me, and its still something I whisper under my breath weekly. Do not despair when your in the middle of a really complex repair and you hit a wall of fear: that is the place we live and thrive. Yes, even very seasoned techs do this on complex damage, so do not give up. Push through it no matter how much time it takes, build on your failures, and revel in your victories. Two paths are laid before every technician when they are alone are sitting in front of a dent: adapt and overcome all obstacles or accept failure. Not all dents can be repaired and a good technician will know, when to say no. However, if all of your dents look like a miniature bull is trying to escape the panel, its time to rethink your approach. Get quality, get knowledge, she will protect you. Do not give up, the parts of this book you don’t understand, will make more sense when you are ready to understand them.
Also beware of the money draw and those who try to sell you on selling yourself. Take a very hard independent look at the operations that they are running on the day to day. Money and success cannot be duplicated exactly the same way for every single person. Having said that, they do have a “spirit” that you need to be near and listen to. Just understand that if your going to invest your time, resources, and energy into, don’t expect to learn from them anything, other than: Get off your ass, and make more money. Its almost like hiring someone to clean your house for you, but you live like a total slob. Your not really addressing the real issue, that your a shitty cleaner and you need to get off your ass and clean, instead of dropping hundreds of dollars a month on cleaning it. Its not that you can’t more money with the time it takes to toss that solo cup away, rather its the person your becoming by not doing it. You need to decide what is worth more, your bank account or who you are. If who you are is not the kind of person that takes care of the little things in your life, then how does that translate into parts of your work that really matters. Customers can pick up on subtle cues, things that are not said, but are done or Omitted. Often times dent guys, get a very cocky bravado, and its simply not called for. Usually, this indicates a deep insecurity which is being compensated by a very thick shell of bullshit, and thats ok, as long as you are aware of it and deal with it on a personal level, and do not allow it to affect your quality. Basically what Im saying is that everything that is specific typically costs you more, that stick of glue that costs 1$ to make and another 5$ to package as a PDR product costs around 20$ to you. You can either source the information yourself or rely on someone else to clean your house. However, this bleeds over into so many other disciplines. Ecclesiasties: there is nothing new under the sun. The basic ideas that are being preaches are basic concepts that have been around forever and the basic general themes are the same. However, it is good to be spoon fed information that you already know, it does lift your spirit and helps you get a new resolve, but it won’t really help you. There is something to be said for doing your own research and mining your own information from other independent sources. If you do not seek and discover for yourself then you are letting those in the industry that say they are trying to help you actually hinder you. 97% of the people who quit too soon are employed by the 3% who never gave up.
People always generally accept comforting lies vs. Unpleasant truths.
Haters, what are we suppose to do with them? Well lets look at the life of king Solomon, what did he do when people ran their mouth about him? He let them live and he listened to them. 2 Samuel 16:8-13. Davids men around him wanted him to shut down this nay-sayer, by beheding, but David spared him and listened to his insults.