Exterior dents caused from the inside

[Ardygurly]

I hope this is the right place to post this....Me and my husband are totally renovating a 1973 Avion camper. I mean we ripped out the wiring and insulation and all. We've never done anything like this before and we are already starting to see the results of our rookie mistakes. While we were taking out the foam insulation we were using the back of hammers to claw out the insulation not realizing we were creating dents that now show through on the outside. There are no actually holes, just a bench of dents on the exterior. Is there ANY way we can smooth out those dents? Please be easy on me, we are totally clueless!

[HiJoeSilver]

You can try a dent roller, it looks like this,
Lock Technology Shaping Tool Attachment for Pry Bar - Dent Roller Part# LT790
Out of stock there but look around on the internet.
A little masking tape over the dents to prevent scratching.
How many dents are we talking here?

[HiJoeSilver]

Seems out of stock most places, these guys seem to have them,

SHAPE TIP TOOL LT790 | Matco Tools

[Ardygurly]

Originally Posted by HiJoeSilver

You can try a dent roller, it looks like this,
Lock Technology Shaping Tool Attachment for Pry Bar - Dent Roller Part# LT790
Out of stock there but look around on the internet.
A little masking tape over the dents to prevent scratching.
How many dents are we talking here?

sadly we are talking dents across the whole entire camper

[Ardygurly]

thank you guys for the idea though. I'll for sure look into those rollers

[Bill Lynch]

Try to contact a metal smith or artisan near you. They will be familiar with the tendencies of metals to stretch and likely will have the tools and skills to remove the dents.

Or, if the dents seem similar to hailstone damage, a craftsman with hail repair skills could be valuable.

If you attempt to repair wrongly you could damage the panels even worse. Stretched metal is not easy to put back in shape.

[Jacob D]

There was recently a thread that described using suction cups on the outside to pull dents out apparently with very good results. A little more research on Air Forum should get you to that information.

[Ralph12]

Originally Posted by Ardygurly

I hope this is the right place to post this....Me and my husband are totally renovating a 1973 Avion camper. I mean we ripped out the wiring and insulation and all. We've never done anything like this before and we are already starting to see the results of our rookie mistakes. While we were taking out the foam insulation we were using the back of hammers to claw out the insulation not realizing we were creating dents that now show through on the outside. There are no actually holes, just a bench of dents on the exterior. Is there ANY way we can smooth out those dents? Please be easy on me, we are totally clueless!

Why would you remove the insulation?, but since you have I would find a person who knows how to work aluminum, probably an aircraft sheet metal worker (NOT CHEAP) I have a couple of little dents (from outside) on my 78 28J AVION but even as an aircraft mechanic I would not tackle them.
Good luck
PS We have had our AVION camping in Colorado in temps as low as 0 deg. F and stayed nice and warm, thats what the foam insulation is for.

[Ardygurly]

Originally Posted by Ralph12

Why would you remove the insulation?, but since you have I would find a person who knows how to work aluminum, probably an aircraft sheet metal worker (NOT CHEAP) I have a couple of little dents (from outside) on my 78 28J AVION but even as an aircraft mechanic I would not tackle them.
Good luck
PS We have had our AVION camping in Colorado in temps as low as 0 deg. F and stayed nice and warm, thats what the foam insulation is for.

we removed the insulation because the wiring was bad and there were leaks and holes throughout the camper so we wanted to strip it down bare to redo the whole thing. We plan to put new foam insulation in . I'm going to try the roller just to see how that goes. The dents are cosmetic so I think hiring an aircraft sheet metal worker is out of the question. That just sounds expensive lol

[Aerowood]

Send me a PM

[Aerowood]

I meant to saw "send me a pm regarding dent rollers"