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Help me paint my bed.

Would it be easier for you to cut out the messed up spot and put in new metal? Possibly fro the bed on your truck now or from a door. The trim could hide the top and bottom seams
 
That was my initial plan. But fir $50, the new bed is in so muchbbetter shape that it's not worth it. Also, doing it this way will minimize the down time of the truck. It will also allow me to get started now as the whole truck won't fit in my garage, but the bed itself will!
 
It's been really tough to get out in the cold garage in the mornings! I work second shift so my free time is in the am. But I finally got out there today and cleaned up and rearranged everything so that I could work on both bed sides at once. I really need a bigger garage.
 
You will have fun with that stud welder :D

I bought one and used it a bunch pulling the dents on my 71 blazer. Just don't pull too far.
 
Should work ok for a guy like me. It's like anything from harbor freight. It will probably work ok as long as you have realistic expectations.
 
Be warned, Stud Welder might not mean what you think it means........

I was going to buy one, thinking it was just the kind of welder guys like me were supposed to use.

Turns out its means its a specialty welder for welding little metal rods to sheet metal..........
 
I have (had) the same color on my 78 K5. I like your attitude. I chose to go with a fizz bomb paint job knowing that the desert scrub will blend any paint imperfections fairly quickly. My rig looks great so long as it is moving at a high rate of speed or through a dust cloud. Since it doesn't move quickly it is limited. I repaired the rust, or most of it and left the dents.

Harbor Freight is a great resource so long as you temper your expectations. I had a Flux core welder that lasted almost 10 years with pretty heavy usage, some things I'm pretty sure didn't make it home before deciding to break. I look forward to seeing how this turns out.
 
I'm going to mention that a stud welder will have very little use on that bed. Unless I missed some pictures, the damage isn't nearly bad enough to put up with the damage the welder will cause. I think those things are more for super crunched up panels, then light body work.

The dents on that bed should be able to come out with a hand dolly and some creative leverage tools on the back side.
 
Well, I played with the stud welder a little bit today. It does do a pretty good job. I watched many hours of YouTube videos on how best to use them. One common theme I found was to not use the slide hammer as a slide hammer but more as something to pull on to pull the stud. That's what I did bit of thismmorning. It does work pretty good. I think in this case it's almost necess ary because there is no way to swing the hammer from the back side. It's going to be quite a trick to even get that spoon dolly that ryoken posted back in tthere! I do think that I will be able to do some hammer and dolly work tho. I will end up needing a shrinker hammer as ryoken suggested and/or the heat and cool method to get rid of some high spots and "oil canning".

I only had a few minutes to play this morning. My wife is getting her wisdom teeth pulled tomorrow and I think I'll be staying home from work to watch over her. I'm hoping she will be drugged up enough for me to go play out in the garage some more!

Anyway, here is a couple pics from this morning. It doesn't look it, but the dents are certainly not as severe as before.








Also, there is no damage caused by the studs that I can tell. I know in the old days is was popular to use the screw and slide hammer method. That's just silly. And J, only studs can use a stud welder!
 
Ryoken mentioned hammering "off dolly" and that's more what I was referring to. You should be able to get a dolly up behind the panel under the dent and push the low spot outward while you tap around the edge of the dent with a hammer. I actually bought a few different crow bars from HF and welded some different types of dollies on the end to shove up behind the same area on mine. I used the pry bar to apply pressure from behind while I flattened it out from the outside with a hammer. I had a goal of not using any filler so we may have different goals. That's not meant to be a knock, just explaining the why I don't like the stud welder.

The problem you may have now is lowering all the high spots that may have formed around each of the studs. This is where a straight edged ruler can help you find the high and low spots. Ryoken may chime in with some even better ways of doing that.
 
gotta run out here, didn't read everything.... but one technique with a stud welder, especially if you have poor backside access, is to use it as a reverse dollying technique... apply constant outward pressure on the stud, even if that's with visegrips, as you hammer the edges of the dent.... they don't necessarily have to be high spots, just the perimeter of the dent, that light tapping combined with the outward pressure will bring the low spots out....

i'll check back when I get back in later.........





unless the neers say no! :whistle: :haha:
 
It's wild how it has crazy high and crazy low spots. I used a piece of flat stock I have as a ruler. I circled the high spots with a marker after I took those pics. For the most part, it'sa bunch of low area. My pulling ddid not create any more high spots.

Ryoken, pulling while hammering is the technique I have been using. I like the idea of using the slide hammer in reverse!
 
Ryoken, i just re-read what you wrote with the "reverese dolly". Thats the method i was working with this morning. Hopefully tomorrow i have more time to play.
 
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