Dealing with Dents. Putty?

[86GmLsCoupe]

I'm getting the car ready for paint and started trying to tap out some of door dings with a dolly and hammer. I haven't had much luck so far since I never used them before, I'm pretty light with it, and some areas are inaccessible. I wanted to try and get rid of the dents with some hammering and then Rage filler for the remaining low spots, but I don't want to sand each dent down to bare metal like the filler requires. There's no rust there with the 20+ yr factory coating and I want it to stay that way. I saw Evercoat makes a putty (Spot-Lite) which it says can be put of over sanded oem finishes. Has anyone had any experience with using putty versus filler? Whats you're preference, and do you think it'd work for the hundreds of tiny dimples on my door?

[1987cp]

I don't have a lot of practical experience and I'm not familiar with the particular product you mention (and probably won't contribute much to the discussion), but I do know that filler and glazing putty are rather different things. Filler (such as Bondo) you use for hiding the imperfections left after the metal patching, welding, dent pulling, shrinking hammer and slapping file work, etc. Glazing putty is for those extra tweaks and to fill in the minor porousness when the filler is already fully cured, sanded, and pretty close to perfect. I know that products like Metal-2-Metal are supposed to be good and that Bondo should never get wet, and not to overlook the benefits of using poly spray filler and/or high-build primer to block-sand the car two or three times with a sanding board to make darn sure it's straight. I also know that while some products will work over old paint, it's always best to go down to bare metal if you can - and it's not that hard, especially if you get one of those rubber-impregnated brush doodads for your Roloc die-grinder attachment. Slightly expensive (especially if you get them from the Snap-On guy), but it's one of the better ways to get down to metal in a hurry without digging in and doing damage.

Now if I ever get around to instituting any of that on a car of my own, my "advice" might actually be 0.0025 of the way worth listening to!

[zwack88]

I have used glazing putty for little door dings. Yeah you can do it no problem. You every seen overhauling or whatnot when they are doing bodywork, they spread the whole panel they are working on with glazing putty and block it out that way first. It is good stuff just expensive as apposed to just taking paint off and apply a regular polyester filler.

[86GmLsCoupe]

Sounds like the way to go then because I need the paint to last maybe 10-15 years till i can afford a full resto. I just don't want to cause more problems with rust, but want it to look decent in the mean time. I also checked the specs for the can of Rage filler, and it says it can go over properly sanded oem finishes so that'll work to.