Anyone have experience with hot glue paintless dent removal?
 

Supposedly the cheap kits work if you let the glue sit for ten minutes, which I did not see before. I bought some Stanley high-strength hot glue that worked pretty well, but cannot find what I had left. Walmart now sells Gorilla Glue hot glue sticks, but I am not sure how much better those work. I broke the glue tab with my Autozone kit using Gorilla Glue, bought a new one from Harbor Freight, and broke that tab using their glue, but letting it sit for ten minutes.
I have been using elevator bolts from Ace, but the glue peels off too easily.
Has anyone tried PDR-specific glue? Can you recommend something that would hold glue better than the metal on elevator bolts?

Here is the Stanley glue: Stanley GS500 6-Pack 4-Inch Formula II-Super Strength Glue Sticks
Surebonder: Surebonder H-810R High Performance Acrylic Adhesive Glue Sticks, 10-Inch
Steinel: Steinel GF 260 High Strength 12" Glue Sticks
Tabweld: TabWeld - The World's Best PDR Specific Adhesive – BlackplaguePDR.com

Thank you very much!

The local hail dent king says they don't work that well.
And I noticed he doesn't use them.
Guess your experience is why they don't work.

If you want to give the steel elevator bolt one last try, first grind off any metal plating or surface rust, thoroughly degrease, then bond immediately. Bond strength to steel is VERY dependent on surface preparation.

Metal plating on the bolt? There was not much rust on the fender, but I sanded it down. I have been spraying it with denatured alcohol and wiping down with a clean rag.
I bought more Stanley hot glue, two other high-strength sticks with great reviews, and the best-rated PDR glue sticks on Amazon, but it requires a 100-watt hot glue gun, and the only good one I could find was this: https://www.amazon.com/Surebonder-PR...t+hot+glue+gun

At thirty-one dollars, I was not ready to commit to it for a proof-of-concept. I do not remember finding any stores selling 100w glue guns. The ones that came with the kits were only 40w, so perhaps eighty or even sixty would have been enough for a button of glue, I just know that 40w gun was inadequate.

I used my heat ray to melt glue onto the tab. Both the metal and plastic tabs held! I was able to pull out dents! I will post pictures of the results soon. There are still high and low spots and a crease, but it is much better.

I have not gotten back to my cars, though. I wandered around a car paint superstore, but that seemed like a waste of time.

I made some progress, but hit a plateau. None of these special hot glue sticks pop off like normal ones do, at least not from both sides.

I started trying this again to remove dents from my roof. I am making some progress, but that metal has a great deal of flex.

And here I thought it was a temperature differential thing causing the dents to pop out...remember reading somewhere about heating and quickly cooling(or vice versa) a dent to get it to pop out.

Like most things, halfass efforts will probably cost you more in the long term than doing it properly. Maybe not in $$, but in effort and time, yes.

Yes but the learning can be worth it. It is how half-asses become full asses! Wait, that does not seem right. :)

I looked up one of your links, Xist, and then hunted for review video demonstrations of the TapWeld brand. This one is pretty professional, basically unedited, and quite impressive:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zgOzC8Mv0h4

Perhaps one day I can progress from awful to awe-inspiring?

Xist, take some pictures of your process and post 'em... both failure and success. Would be appreciated because instructive, too.

Good luck. I am curious now. First heard of PDR just like 6 months ago from that "Car Stuff" podcast.

Heavy images!
 

I have four elevator bolts and I think I have glued them to the roof five times each. I believe I am approaching the point of diminishing returns, but feel the dents are much less obvious now. I have been using Gorilla Glue sticks, which Wal-Mart only had available in minis, and I gave up on Wal-Mart's mini glue gun and started cutting off an inch of glue stick, melting the end, positioning it on the roof, and melting the rest with my heat ray, but I think I have been overdoing it, needing to hold the elevator bolts for the full minute it takes the glue to harden seems excessive.

I have used this on a friend's fender, my fender, a barbeque lid, and various other parts of my two Hondas. The glue keeps releasing from the bolts and staying on the roof. If I wanted to pull the same spot again I remeltedit. You are not supposed to do that, but I am having difficulty removing it.

Unfortunately, one of my last pulls popped off the roof, but stayed on the bolt.

It has a small flake of paint.

Right now I am going to worry about removing the hot glue and working on other projects. Normally the glue just peels off and sometimes I need to use a plastic scraper. People argue whether you should use acetone, censured alcohol, or isopropyl alcohol to remove hot glue. I had a spay bottle with one of those, but I am not sure where it is, or if it evaporated.

Pictures:

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...7&d=1524004825

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...8&d=1524004857

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...9&d=1524004895

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...0&d=1524004918

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1524004951

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...2&d=1524004985

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...3&d=1524005022

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...4&d=1524005048

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...5&d=1524005086

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...6&d=1524005134

This is a different angle, but I think this is before I started meddling: http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1523664279

This is the same area: http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...2&d=1524004985

Gorilla Glue hot glue held better than the five other brands that I tried, but it hardly came off when I used acetone, 91% isopropyl alcohol, or denatured alcohol. I kept spraying it with 91% iso and using my plastic scraper when I realized there were tons of scratches in the clearcoat.

It should not be too difficult to redo the clearcoat, but I still did not remove the last of the hot glue.

I sanded it off.

I removed the passenger seat, used a floor jack, three-foot pipe, flange end, and hockey puck to push out some of the dents, but it only really worked when I could get the flange and hockey puck to match the curve of the roof, and it was difficult to get the floor jack to work with that.

I was not sure how to continue with the hot glue method. I broke two bridges previously and the one that I made from a zinc bar worked well, but it seemed like if I kept using it, the feet would create dents. I put a handle on the elevator bolts and pulled the best that I could, but I was only able to put so much force on it.

I bought this kit: $30 PDR slide hammer

I do not want to try the kit on the roof until I sand it some more, but I tried it on the hood. The light changed and I need to figure out something like the lights and stripe boards I see in the video. I put down four tabs, the three circles, which are larger than any tabs that I have seen, and bigger than I expected, and a large football-shaped one.

I think that it is for creases. There is a recess down the middle. I am not sure how that is supposed to help with creases.

Anyway, the football-shaped one popped off the first time that I pulled on it. Another popped after ten or fifteen pulls. The other two did not come off until I sprayed them with 91% isopropyl alcohol and used the slide hammer.

The hot glue does not peel off like normal stuff. When I sprayed it with alcohol and used a plastic scraper it broke up and made a mess. There is still black hot glue in a couple different spots. It definitely comes off easier than Gorilla Glue, but I do not think it holds as well, either.

The kit also comes with yellow glue sticks, which are supposed to hold better.

We will see how the slide hammer works with that stuff and the other products that I have bought.

Everything but Gorilla Glue.

The system seemed to work, but I still need to figure out to check the surface effectively.

looks like significant improvement.

Some progress.

Okay, seriously, what is the problem with the uploader? I uploaded it normally and it rotated, so I rotated it the other way, it rotated 180°, and that third try did not work so well, either.

I used hot glue sticks from the dollar store and they worked well enough, but the mini gun does not put out enough heat for the large tabs. However, the cheap glue helped pull up the black glue.

I am not sure that I can improve it any further, but it is less noticeable.

There seem to be some subtle ridges on the hood and roof, so I think I will use my bridge again. Hopefully I can push down the ridge, pull up the dent, and not dent the other side.

I worked on the roof, although I am not sure that it did any good, although it did not damage the paint [further]. Someone complained that the glue sticks that came with their slide hammer damaged the paint on their Chrysler 200.

Apparently their Chrysler 200 has worse paint than my twenty year-old Honda.

I moved to one of my old full-sized glue guns with sticks from Dollar general. They charge 45¢ each for a pack of ten. The gun jammed, so I disassembled it, and the spring sprung into the endless chaos of the garage that Mom refuses to organize. The trigger on the other one was broken, so I took it apart, reattached the spring, screwed it back together, and the first time that I tried to use it, the spring popped loose, and I needed to operate it by shoving the stick into the gun, while maneuvering the tab.

It really did not work well.

I am now the proud owner of a $9 Walmart glue gun, but it is too late to work.

Their glue sticks are 25¢ each for bags of 24.

Harbor fright heat gun for maybe $9. Use to add , remodel, or remove glue. Buy your glue from big store fabric craft places, with a 20% off coupon.

Walmart is the big fabric store in the area and I already have a heat ray, but you are right, it should work--or my plastic scraper, if I could just find it. I have been using a kid's shovel that I bought to stir homemade root beer for my fortieth birthday.

Edit: I thought it might be too early to use my slide hammer, but I wanted to use my bridge puller.

Here I go!