Hey, what's up everybody? Gene Fetty with the Automotive Appearance Institute back at you with another episode of our all access podcast. Today's episode, we've got Mr. Dan Rikiki, the dent guy from Rochester, New York. Uh, Dan came down to, uh, grab some tools and see us this weekend. And I said, Hey, let's hop on a show and learn a little bit about you and learn how you learn dents.
So Dan. Welcome back to Pittsburgh. Thank you. Uh, welcome to the show. Um, so I said, you're Dan from Rochester. Give us a little background on, on who you are and what you do. Um,
Dan Rechichi Rochester, New York. Uh, I own the business of the dent guy and uh, we've been going strong for about 15 years now and uh, started out as a, uh.
tech of a 20 years heavy hit guy, right? You were the big hit guy, frame, frame machine. You know, if it got hit by a train, that's, that's what I was repairing. Back when those still got fixed.
Those are totals, right?
Those
are just totals and then collect storage now. But, um, I always was infatuated with metal straightening and I always hated doing filler work So I always straightened my sheet metal the best that I could with the abilities that I had right and then I Just I wanted to paintless dent repair because I thought if I can further my skill set You know, I'm getting it really close and some of the stuff I could just repair with Paintless dent repair and it would be finished, right?
Um, so Eventually I just took up the training. I had a big life altercation back in 2008 and I was out of work for a little bit. And then I came back and uh, you know, by that time I was managing shops and things like that. And uh, I'm like, what the heck am I doing? I hate this. So, uh, just like anybody else, I'm, I'm going to get some tools and start dabbling with it and stuff.
Taking some panels home. And, uh, then I found Mr. Uh, Mike Toledo's, um, uh, learning lines 1 0 1 or whatever. And I know you're gonna say all lines, lines, lines, whatever. I'll let you slide the lines. It works, works for everybody, right? No, it doesn't. . It's John Crewe could say white noise. Yeah, exactly. Um, but uh, with his videos and everything, I was able to kind of understand the process a little bit more.
Figure out what I was looking at and I already knew like what the repair should look like and It should be better than The guy that I knew his work that was out there, right? That was one of the turn ons was like, well, man, he's getting paid for this. I can do that. I'm pretty sure So were you still? In the body shop when you started learning was that I was okay.
Yeah. Yeah, so I would uh I would take, uh, that was after my two years, I was out of work, I came back, I was managing shop and office work and, um, you know, head babysitter, basically. Right. And, uh, I decided to just start taking some panels home in my basement and, uh, put a golf ball in a sock. Same here? Yep, yep, yep.
You know, tap it lightly with a hammer, not so hard, um, to get going. And with watching all of Mike's videos and stuff like that, I would say it was about eight months before I was fixing a one inch dent to okay. I wasn't happy. Yeah, I wasn't happy with it. Um, but I actually started selling it in the body shop.
A little bit, you know, and I would stay late at night and do it and, uh, for some customers and stuff. Nice. And, um, I'd started my business already with that. Um, like I started the process with tax ID numbers, repair shop number. Yes. We see that with a lot of auto body techs that are starting to get in.
They do go ahead and start like call it a side hustle and get in. Um, Um, in our last episode, you probably didn't listen to, but we had Mac on my son and I want to get your perspective on this. So he started out in the body shop, right? That's cleanup guide and mechanical guy or suspension and actual body work.
And through there, he started doing a little glue pulling and playing with some pushing, right? He knows her. Dad's a dent guy. Looks easy enough. It sure did. I mean, really like everybody thinks it's easy. He, what he said is. He never pushed himself too far because he always had that safety net or a parachute, I think is what we called the last episode to fall back on of like, ah, that's good enough.
I can just put it in filler and then they tap out. Yeah. Now I didn't realize you were in the front of the office or front of the shop when he started practicing. Oh yeah. Were you, were you using that as a safety net while you were learning? Like, Hey, if I can't get it, we're going to paint it anyways. Or were you fighting through it more?
And you were like, this has to be painless. What, what was your, what did you find? What was your perspective? I had some of the guys, they would want me to rough something out or something for them. Um, but really I was so busy running the shop that, you know, I would go out for a little bit or whatever. Um, my, by that time I'd pretty much tapped out as a body technician.
Um, I wanted nothing else to do with it. And my goal was to be good enough to just go out and start doing it and make money at it. So you were like, you were in, and I think that was, that was the drive that I had is I knew that I was leaving this place and I need to be good enough to pay my mortgage, pay my truck payment and pay everything, you know?
Right. Um, Um, you know, we were, we were pretty, we'd already been through a pretty, uh, big, uh, income change with being out of work and everything like that. Um, and I knew like the bare minimum I had to make, it's not really a good business model, but I knew if I did this, this, and this, the, the old dent guy mentality, well, this costs this many dents.
And I only got to do one more of those dents to get me to this, to get that. So, um, not the best, but it was enough for me, um, to, to think that way. My, my goal was finished product. Yeah. Um, not rough it out for filler and see where you were pushing. So guys, I want you to like the body text, the new PDR texts that are listening to the show.
So this is the mindset that it takes. To become successful in PDR, right? It's you watch some videos. Yep. Picked up your concepts, right? You got the, the theory, right? You understood the theory, relatively simple, really like we can sit down and go to lunch. And the theory of dent repair is simple. The execution is hard.
Yep. You have to push yourself, push through to make it happen. I think we've, I know in some of the episodes we've talked about burn the boats. So you're talking about, Hey, I know I'm going to leave this place. Yep. But I've got a mortgage and a truck payment and this and utilities and I'm more like we got to get it all done.
It was the, what if I can't do this or whatever. But you don't give yourself that, you're like, I am going to do this. Absolutely. And this is how we're going to make it happen. And that's what you have to do. Right? Well, and anybody that is practicing knows that you can get, you can kind of get yourself to that point where you've got the mass of it up and everything pretty good.
Like. Pretty quickly. And that's why there's a lot of dent techs out there because they are, they're getting it up pretty quickly. Oh, 15 minutes. I'm done with that. Blah, blah, blah. I'll get 250, 500 bucks for that. Okay. But can you put that at a retail quality where you can actually charge close to what a collision shop would charge for that.
Yeah. Um, Finishing is the hardest part of this business. Right, I point to the other side of the wall because the shop's on the other side of the studio wall. And that's where Mac's at, even when he came in this morning and we were looking at, Hey, how's our little buddy doing? And you can see that the finish is the hard part.
And Mac sees, he's like, man, those first couple of pulls were pretty easy. Like we made big movements. And he's like, well, what am I doing? Yeah. Chasing that last right squiggle that a rock a rock lot. You know, it's good enough You're gonna get your 50 bucks and carry on. Yeah, but if you don't want to be running Like an idiot fixing four inch stunts for 50 bucks, right?
um And I say idiot with a loose term. There's a business model for everybody in this business But if you don't want to be doing that And you want to be at a fixed location and a brick and mortar building and stuff You really need to Differentiate yourself from different ends of the business. We want to strive to be like, I really feel like you need to strive to be the best technician you can be, right?
Chase your craft, be a craftsman. And then as you grow, uh, right, start rock lots and then move to maybe new car dealers and then move it into some body shops and then move it into some retail. It's, it's an evolution and like you don't necessarily get the approval to jump straight into retail. Right.
Cause you're just, you're not going to be there. Right. You build and build and build and adapt and change, uh, as you improve your skills. Right. Right. I always push my techs to do the best work possible. Absolutely. Right. To be able to, to deliver what's there. Now, real world, we do plenty of drastic improvement repairs.
Absolutely. We do plenty of wholesale repairs that are like good enough, but you have to be good enough. That when you get that brand new Bentley on the showroom floor, right where everybody's looking at it and that customer stand on there watching you, you better be able to deliver that flawless. You call it, I call it body shop quality or better product.
Yeah on demand. Yeah. And if you don't push yourself to be able to do that You can't do it. You can think you can do it, right? But until you put it into practice and do it all the time Well, not there. That was one of strive for that was one of my biggest. Um Things that I learned when I started um Hindsight like Got good enough.
I did a two week two week training mill You Out in California. Well, let's, let's, so let's back up, let's talk about your training journey and get to there. So you said you got some videos off of Mike. Yes. Right. Yep. Back in the day. On DVD. Yeah. That's old school. Old school. Yeah. Um, I think I got an online video from Mike.
Yep. He did have something. It was like a hammer and doll, like the rubber face craftsman hammer and dolly for sharp knives. Like BB hits that I bought that video off. Okay. Yeah. I remember that. So if you want to see Mike stuff and you, if you found me and not Mike, I'm not sure how you did that, but he's at dent time or Mike Toledo Mike with a Y or dent trainer.
com. Like that's where Mike's production lives. Uh, but back to it. So you really started call it via video, via virtual virtual was a thing. Yep. Yeah. What? First off, now that you're a successful business owner and technician in hindsight, looking back, what were the best parts of starting that way? What, what, what did that help you accomplish instead of just jumping right into a school?
It got me set up. So like I was able to read where the tool was and knew the theory that I needed. Um, And how damn hard it fricking was, right? It's not like, it's not as easy as you make it look. I promise. Oh, I'll just sand this a little bit and it'll go away. Well, no, it didn't. Yeah. You know, like you really need to get rid of that.
Right. And by no means was I cracking paint. Right. But, you know, this Um, I just, well, that's, that's what PDR was, right? That you go to so and so, that's what he does. Yeah, it's just crossing. Yeah. Not what we want. Um, but I mean, this is back when we had the RV light with the lines on it or the fog on it. You know, I had it on a mic stand, like we didn't have LED lights and stuff.
No, that was, that was. I wasn't on a tube light. Well, technically I was, but there was a lens over the tube light. Yep. Yep. Um, and I was that guy like, Oh shit, I'll just build that, you know? Right. Cause I was going in light, not a lot of money. Sometimes you gotta save money. Yep. Uh, so it got you set up there financially.
Did it make more sense for you to start online than then going in and heading out to school? Initial investment. Yes. Um, hindsight, no. Okay. Um, but, I say that meaning, if I spent the money to go to the school that I went to in California, that would have been a waste of money. Right. Right. Because, The curriculum wasn't there.
It was just like anything else that you can see. It's all right. Well, we got X's and O's. We're going to make high spots here. We're going to start knocking them down and blah, blah, blah. Um, no, no real world. Um, except for like one or two little cars. Um, basically it gave me two weeks of not going to work and sitting in this storage unit, whatever.
It's crazy. And. Working on a hood. Um, so it gave me two weeks and then like the, the guy that owned the business, he wasn't even really there. It was some tech that worked for him that sat there. He was basically the DJ for the day and he'd give you tasks to do to try to learn. Right. Um, so it was definitely a setback of what I actually expected.
But, um, at the, they were kind of like, well, I don't, I don't know what we can do for you because you're doing everything that you need to do to learn. Right. Like you need to put the time in. I experienced the exact same thing. We'll get into that story. If not in this show, another one. And then they had a, remember Toyota Tacoma come in, there was no talk on pricing or anything like that.
Right. Um, but we all know high strength steel door and it was a whale tail behind an intrusion beam. Yep. And those old taco doors. And it was a little, it was just a little dent. And I went out and I got it out and everything. And they're like, all right, well, here's, here's your 75 that you just made. And they're like, I mean, really, you're good to go.
You just need to go find some dealerships and put the time in practice and put the time in. And, uh, before I had gone out to that training, like I tried to get my boss to pay half of the training. Yeah. Pay half of my training to go and train with Mike because I'd already seen he had a curriculum. He understands how to Move you through the process to learn and advance you and that's what I tell everybody They need to have a curriculum.
They can't just be a dent guy Right But with that he didn't want anything to do with it even with me saying well, I'll stay here for three years I guarantee it and we'll implement this into the body shop and you can make money. Nope. Don't want anything. Didn't want to hear it so I went and did that I came back I put my two weeks in and Like I said, I already had my business stuff going and I went out and I started cold calling Scariest freaking like I'm impressed with that burn the boat.
Well, you know me, right? I'm not just burning the boat I'm freaking torching the first the forest on the island. We're not making any more wood here These New Yorkers can be a little rough. We're a little crazy but uh, I actually went out and I I found a dealer group outside of like where everybody else was going they had a Chrysler and a Ford store Great vehicles to work on.
Right. Um, Chrysler back in the day was brutal. Ford, not so bad. But Chrysler, the glue. Oh Lord. But I had, it was the Chrysler service drive that I went and talked to him and he's like, Take a look at something. My guy says he can't fix this. Okay, I look at it. I'm like, well sure, I should be able to fix that.
You know, all I had to do was drop the headliner down and blah, blah, blah. And after that, I was a god. That's it. When you do that job, the other guy says, go on, you're in. Yep. Yep. Um, and, uh, I believe glue pulling as poor as I was at it at that point. Like that's when they had like the x freaking tabs. Oh yeah.
Yeah. You gotta put the glue over it for if they like, that's when everybody was getting crazy with ridiculous design trying to figure it out. Yep. Yeah. Um, but uh, I got that out and, you know, I would go there basically those two places. Where, where I went was where I went for the week. Sure. And if I had worked fast by we're talking easy up and you know, like pull the car around, uh, peeing in the parking lot because you're so fricking slow, you know, and, uh, but I was making a living doing it.
Um, I, I started my website already for retail repair and stuff. Like, I'm ahead of the curve, man. I'm in New York. I do not want to freaking be working outside when the snow flies. Yeah. Well, it's when I picked Dan up this morning at the hotel, it was 14 degrees. So Pittsburgh is not a whole lot different.
Not at all. So how long before you went for your two week training, uh, how long did you practice via video? How much, how much, how much metal time did you put in with your videos before you went to your two week training? Videos. Was a lot like my wife could probably pick out Mike Toledo's voice. I'd be like, Oh, that's Mike.
Yeah. Yeah. I know Mike. I've heard. Yeah. But eight months. Yeah. Cause you weren't on a smartphone or anything. No. You're watching it on the TV. Yep. Yeah. And the DVD. Falling asleep. Cause it's after work, you know? Yeah. Oh, weekend. Let me put this back in here. Let me see what I'm doing wrong. Oh yeah. He did that.
Let me try that. You know, go downstairs and do it. And do it. So how long, how much time did you spend? I would say eight months. Okay. Eight months. Yep. So, so guys, I want to, so trying to follow the story, uh, started online. He put eight months of metal time in. Yeah. And then, I mean, that was after work. Right.
But no, it's not solid, but it's like, and a lot of guys that start this, that's, that's what you do. So I had a detail shop, went to dent school, wanted to get out of the detail shop. Came back and saw that I was struggling. It wasn't like go home and just do it. No, that's not how it works. After mine was, uh, mine was a long time.
That's how you're sold. It was five days, you know, although you'll be up and running in a month. I left the detail shop. Mike, the kid that was working for me, I'm like, Tony, this is yours. I took a job delivering pizzas. And when I wasn't delivering pizzas, I was at my mom's so I didn't have a garage. We were married in an apartment.
I was at my mom's garage. hitting a panel from my buddy's body shop that had practicing arm. Yeah. So he put eight months of part time metal time in to set you up to go to your two week training. Yep. That, that in your own words was not very good. No. But by the end of that two weeks, you obviously were able to do some level of billable work.
So what I don't, what I don't want you guys to think is I can go to a two week training. By no means come back and be good to go. Like we sort of reused over that matter. I don't want to steer anybody wrong. Let's, let's just talk for a second. Had you not spent eight months with virtual training before in person training, where do you think you would have been after the two week training?
Do you think you would have made it first of all, or I'm pretty stubborn. So, I mean I I would have done something that's for sure But it had to have set you up for it set me up Like I I knew everything that they were showing me like I understood the theory that they're showing me and everything because you had already Put all those right.
There's no replacement for metal time, right? But you know muscle memory and right and learning to see yep, you know, you've already been down the oh this tool Man, this tool isn't pushing it right. Let me get this tool. This tool will push it right. Right. Oh, let me put a rubber cap on here. Oh, let me drill a hole through the golf ball, put it on the end of the rod and push.
Well, shit, that still isn't working. Right? Um, I've already been through all that. There was another guy in training with me who basically was sent there by a body shop. And, uh, one of our tasks was to push a high and then knock it down. Well, I swear he had Mount St. Helens in this thing with pushing the high.
I, I, and then he was trying to beat it down. And like this happened, he had a week of training and it happened all week long. Like he was just, and I don't know what this guy's doing, but that, that could have been me. He's coming in with zero, zero. Right. Yeah. Um, yeah, just make a high and tap it down. Right.
Which sounds really easy until you try to do it. Yep. Especially if you're trying to put the high like under an X or under a dot. Yeah. Like you need to be accurate. Right. Yeah, exactly. That, that is difficult. Like anybody can put a tool underneath it and make a high spot, you know, I think we can agree. The best way to learn would be in a class in person, long term or, or an apprenticeship, but not everybody can get an apprenticeship, but anybody can go to.
Right. A long training. Yes. So, so I know like Mike Seawald at Gateway Dent in St. Louis, I think it's a six week program. Yup. Right? That's great. Mike at Dent Time. Yup. Multiple week program. Yup. Don Cavanaugh, even. Yeah, Don Cavanaugh, multiple week program. Yup. Uh, Jim Mitchell, Real World, multiple week program.
Now, what I like about. What Jim and Mike do is this, they sort of get you started with online. Yes. Right. Start to put those reps in before you head there. And really there's some people out there that are completely self taught yet. I've never had formal in person training and you can learn all online.
You can. Yeah. I think some of the most successful trainers are now moving towards starting Online, like get the basics. So you're not burning a week learning how to make a high spot under there. Now we, we're coming out with a new course, right? Shameless plug. Uh, it's the intro to PDR through GPR. I've not explained this to Dan.
I want to get like a real world reaction. I want to make sure we're okay on time here. Yep. A real world reaction to, to this, uh, and what you are. And you looked at the panel that Mac is working on in the garage. So when you're learning PDR, uh, I think of it like a full circle. Right? Like, like you need to do everything on top of the panel plus everything on the underside of the panel.
So if we break that down into the two halves on the top of the panel, here's what you need to do. You need to learn how to read a light, whether you're doing it wrong with lines or right with fog. I got to get my jabs in when I can, but you need a, but you need a good reflection source and you need to be able to read and see and understand that you need to be able to identify things.
Right? the deepest point of a dent, right? Cause that's where we're going to start. When you make a high spot, you need to be able to identify the top of the high spot perfectly, right? And place your knock down exactly on it and knock it down. That's the most basics. Then if we start to introduce anything sharp or deep, we're You have all of that plus identifying the deepest point of a deep dent.
And then as that comes up, it volcanoes, right? You need to identify your rim and open that up, right? So you get a whole lot. That's just on top of the panel, right? You need to be able to see all of that. Now, if we're talking about traditional PDR training, everybody jumps right to the push tool. Correct.
And I might say, actually, I believe that with advancements in glue pole. Everybody is teaching PDR the wrong way to start. Glue pulling has changed the world. It really has. So now, right? If we talk, so that's the top half of our circle. Yep. If we talk about the bottom half of our circle, now I'm asking you to take a tool and blindly, because you're not, you're not looking under the panel.
Well, some people will drag it around. They try to feel it. You can drag it around try to feel, but you're not, but you're working blind. Yes. There's not a camera on the backside of the tool to show you where the den is. And I'm asking you to increase distance, right? So everybody knows where their thumb is or a finger.
But when we put 12 or 18 inches of a metal rod beyond the front of your hand, you now have the picture. Where's, where's the end of that tool? Yep And then we need to get in and move but not just move move more precisely Than you've ever tried to move anything in your life. Like if you're looking at the texture of a panel, we're talking about being Inside the texture of the paint right right to that level if you have lines you can see that well You can really see it with fog Can you tell we use different reflections?
So you get under there now you start moving around And you look and watch the tool go to the middle of the den. And then you go to push. Well, what happens to everybody? You push off center, you push off center. So in doing some research, right? It's science. This is not like a gut feeling for me. Like this is science, right?
So what's happening there is when you saw it, yes, you were in the middle of the dead. There's actually this thing called a delay response. It's a delay loop as you are. And especially when you're stressing your brain out and you're trying to read that light and see the bottom of the dens and look at the texture, right?
When you're doing all of that and then we're trying to do super fine motor skills and move underneath. There's actually research that Putting yourself in that stressful situation and trying to do it, you can end up with like, it's a 250 to 400 millisecond delay. So when we were doing, when we were actually filming the course, we had wireless transmitters up.
Mm-hmm . We were on, uh, 200 millisecond delay. That was how long it took to get there. That was four frames out of a video really, that we had to delay the sound. Cause the sounds like hardwired in, uh, if we don't do that loop, it's like watching an old Kung Fu movie. You're like, Hey, Jimmy, you know, and it happens like that.
That's the delay loop you can see. So when you're under there and now you're trying to scroll and find what happens is your eye says, Hey, we're in the middle of the day and your eye needs to talk to your brain. And it says, Hey, brain right here. And then your brain says, okay, cool. Hey, hands stop. By the time that happens, if you think about the delay in a Kung Fu movie, that's why you miss and everybody misses.
Sure. Like it took me a long time to figure that out. Like they actually see it there. They, they were there. Yeah. Cause you're seeing the tip, but by the time you get there, you're not there. That makes a lot of sense. So what we're doing, the approach we're taking is and why I think PDR is being taught wrong, uh, across the board, we're breaking it down.
So to begin, we're erasing the bottom half of the loop. Okay. No pushing at all. We're doing just all glue pull because you can spend all of that time on top and learn to see and learn to be detailed and learn how to knock down precisely without the stress of, Hand eye coordination and delay loops, right?
It's all real time up here. You're watching the tab drip down in nothing's, nothing's moving. You're just, your hand eye coordination is being able to place a tab in the middle of the dent. Now you said it took you eight months to get to doing a quarter size dent to billable. A one inch dent. Yeah. To billable.
You got to see. Some of the stuff that we have Mac doing yeah in a couple of weeks. Mm hmm Give me your thought as a PDR tech Give me your thoughts on that theory And and the real results that you've seen just just looking at the work that's being processed on the panel It's very clean to start with.
Yep It's cuz he's using a fog
It's because of all the lines in the overhead. Oh, is that it? It's what it is. It's the lines. He's cross checking with lines. Yeah. I like it. Yeah. Um, so yes, both. I actually use both reflections, but, um, but yeah, no, I see everything is very clean. Um, even the sharp one that he's working on. The, the dent is up and it's clean and all it is, is a little rim on the side that he's working on knocking back down.
So the dent that Dan's talking about is I took a knock down and gave it a sharp smack. Yep. So it's that, it's almost like a BB hit, but not as stretched as a BB, not as deep as a BB. But that, that's, that's what I want you to picture while he's talking about this dent. Everything's really clean. Clean, there's not push marks all over the plate.
You know, any, anything that I saw on the panel might be like a subtle little wave or something like that. But I feel if you can produce clean work, it's going to be easier for you to finish it. So he, he's got the, He's got the theory of it down, you know, now it's just that time, like, I remember him saying.
When you think you're done, look at it a different way. And he's just at that point. Like, we all do it. Yeah. Like, We still do it. We still do it. It'd be 20 years, 20 years in and you're like, Oh, hell yeah, that was done. That was easy. And you go to walk out and you're like, Oh, son of a bitch. Yeah, I didn't look at it from this direction.
Yeah. I had that on Friday. I had a black ramen here. And I was working it from the door back on the bed and I'm like, God, this looks good. And I moved my light and I walked around to the tail light. I'm like, son of a bitch, you know, and then work it that way. That's 22 years in the business. That's why we cross check, you know, and that's why you take a break and you look away and then you look at it again because we're so focused on that little spot.
We don't set ourselves back. Yep. Or you're not trained. Enough to the point where you're you're looking at a natural reflection while you're doing your repair So you're kind of cross checking and that all at the same time, you know You're just relying on that light to see it. That's something that comes with more experience and metal time.
There's no replacement You can't buy that. It's I Always say, you know, we could all get stoned and watch Bob Ross all day long, right? But we're not gonna go put pretty little trees next to the lake You Yeah, after a trip to Hobby Lobby, right? Like that guy's been painting forever. Exactly. And he makes it look there May be a limited edition Bob Ross Bob Ross gene sticker coming in at MTE.
Oh pay attention if we can get the artwork done in time So there are no mistakes. Very cool. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Happy little mistake Yeah, isn't that what are you little high spots? Yes. Yes. Happy little high spots. Keep an eye out for that sticker I'll get that artwork done. I love it. Yeah. Um, but no, every, everything I saw that he was doing is, I mean, it looks like some of my work.
No, I'm just, it's not, it's, it's better than Dan's work. I've seen Dan's work. I'm just kidding. I get paid. I'm just kidding. That's all. So it's, so, so what I see being the trainer is, and I'm really not giving him kid glove care. Like it's no, I mean, honestly, he's a dick. Yeah. So it's time I roll, but I'm really not, I'm not, I'm testing like proving this theory out.
Absolutely. What we're seeing the results, the damage on dense that dude, I was well over a year before I could fix it to probably not even as good as he's fixing some of this. Sure. I image. Yeah. And he's what, two, two weeks on maybe three at this point. I mean, it's crazy impressive where it's at and I'm not letting him push.
Right. So I'm breaking the loop into two halves. He stuck a tool in the door the other day just because you're going to stick a tool in the door. You're in a dent shop. You want to be a dentist. That's what you're going to do. Yeah.
It was cool to watch how cautiously he was pushing and how fast he stopped. Mm hmm when he was starting to make a high spot. Yep compared to like the guy you're talking about at school Yeah, don't have to see or all these you don't see it until it's a high spot these guys It'll grab a tool when you're at the shop Oh, let me try and and before you can stop them They're up and then breaking the paint or making a high spot That's gonna be a bear to fix and it takes a lot to break paint It really does I mean, especially if it's hot like if you can get it hot a little bit of magic happens As we sort of start to come around to wrap this up, especially because you came out of the body shop and a lot of our audience, right?
Based on blue pull is, is body shop, auto body related. If you could give one piece of advice to the body tech that's at the shop, that is thinking about PDR, thinking about starting to chase this craft, what piece of advice would you give them? Where, where would you say as somebody who pulled yourself out of the body shop, right?
You mean as far as training and making the transition doesn't matter? Doesn't matter. What's your advice?
It's never good enough. That's exactly what max said. Yeah. On the podcast. He's like, when you think it's good backup, cause it's not, it's so in the body shop. One of the reasons I got out. and that I hated it is because I always had to answer for everybody else's things that they didn't do properly.
Whether the paint was bad, there was dirt bad, the, they didn't plug the taillight in and they got pulled over on the way home. Um, if, if you are going to leave the body shop and get into paintless dent repair, that person is complaining to you about what you did. Um, So you want to be able to know that you gave it everything that you could because good enough isn't gonna fly Pay for training Any anybody that went to a trade school like I did for collision repair or whatever You've easily got 40, 000 just in a two year College back when I went, you know, right we rode dinosaurs.
Sure, but Um, and plus your tools. So think of it that way, like you're, you're, you're not going to pay 2, 000 and actually get an education that you need. You need to invest in yourself and have skin in the game. If it's not costing you money or making you uncomfortable, think about what will keep you from quitting.
Very quickly. Yeah, like I don't want to spend that. What if this doesn't work? That's not the right answer. That's the wrong That's the wrong attitude. You need to be like I'm gonna frickin do this. I'm gonna spend the money and And you know what you're gonna spend all that money and then you're gonna come back If you're still working at the body shop, you need to come home and still work at night Push them in your basement, in your garage.
So many guys go wrong there. They don't, they go to training, they think they're going to learn it quick and they come back and they don't put the reps in. You're, you're going to revert to, Oh, that's good enough. I'll just put filler on it. Well, what the heck did you just spend all that money for them?
Because you were at that point before you spent that money. We've all seen, even with glue pulling, um, trainings that you've gone out and done that I've seen posted and stuff. And within, yeah. 20 minutes. Holy crap. Right. Look what this is. Yeah. This is glassable. Yeah. Right. That's great. Like if you want to just, if you want to be that guy, just get to that transition and, and do that.
But if you want to actually be a PDR technician and do all painless, you're going to, you're going to have to put the reps in and, And that's exactly what I see with the, with the A techs, right? At this point, thousands of body techs under my umbrella that I've taught glue pulling to the ones who shine are the ones who push themselves.
Yes. Right. And when you push yourself or you really can do some incredible stuff, in fact, still, it still blows my mind. Some of the pictures and videos I get in from the body techs that aren't to PDR level yet, or maybe they don't care to go to PDR. Cheers. Uh, but they're like, man, Hey, if I think if you were here and you had your push tools, you could finish this thing off.
Yep. Which actually is inspirational to me because I look at it and I'm like, well man, if this body tech can move that this far and get it this close, I certainly can and I can finish it off. Right. More a la Bryce Kelly. I'll be it. I am no Bryce Kelly. Another thing I've seen with that is the body techs or some of the body techs that have really pushed through and push themselves, especially with glue pull, which is sort of where these light bulbs went off for this, this training we're going to launch or we are it's launched.
It's live now. It comes out at the same time as this podcast, uh, the texts who learned and really got proficient with glue pull. And I've talked to some of their trainers when they go to pushing school, um, , they're set, they're already dialed in. Mm-hmm . Because they're so dialed in. Oh, absolutely. On the, uh, on the detail on the top of the circle.
Right? The top of the panel. Yep. They're so dialed in that that just a little bit of work with hand-eye coordination. Yes. And you've removed a lot of that stress. Yep. That creates that delay loop. Yep. Because you're already dialed in on the, uh. The detail, they're set and off to the races fast. Yeah. And don't really crazy.
Don't go get yourself a PDR kit or a glue kit and go buy a hail car. Oh, I'm going to fix this or I'm going to, I'm going to fix my dents in my own car. No, like we put metal time in on panels for hours that don't matter that have, we can throw them out and go get another one before we touch the, Before I would touch my car, you know, um, and like, it takes that time.
You don't, I get so many people, I'm thinking about doing this part time. No. Well, you've got an 80 hour work week. Right. To learn it before you can do it part time. You know what I mean? We can do it part time now. Absolutely. But you can't start part time. Technically, I do. Yeah. Well, there's that. But my, my biggest drive that pushed me is, I burned the, I burned the boats.
Yep. Like after, I don't just burn your boat. No, no, no, no, no. He put eight months and two weeks. I was, I was probably, I bet it was more than a year before I was doing. Any bit of good. Like my wife was like, maybe you should just lower your prices a little bit. So you get more work. It's like, no, you know, don't say that.
But I had bills to pay. That was my drive. Like I would be there at eight in the morning until eight at night trying to get these cars done. Because I know if I didn't, I could either lose the account. And I wasn't going to pay my bills. Like that was my push. And not everybody's like that. Not everybody will.
Set themselves up for that abuse. I think a lot of PDR techs are like, I think that's, that's part of the mindset. And that's, that's what gets you to that point. It's the winner die. Yes. Mentality. Yep. Like that's, that's exactly. And I knew there wasn't like happy little dimes out there that all these dealers wanted to fix.
They don't fix that. Well, yeah, I can fix that. Well, we don't want that one fixed. I want this four inch dent through the body line with laminated glass fixed. Right. What? Okay. What's laminated glass? Right, right. So, you know, it's, yeah, you know, when you think you're good and then you get out there and then you're like, Oh, I'm not so good.
Yep. Been there, done that. Yep. For sure. So for sure. But no, I think, I think you're really onto something with that. It's going to move. I mean, I know technicians that have started with glue pulling and are excelling very quickly. Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's, it's actually, it's really cool. It's almost disheartening to know how much we struggled and now with advancements in, in lighting and in glue pull and in training, right?
It's there's, there's more curriculum. There's better training now than there's ever been. Like it's, it's incredible to watch. Especially my son, right? Proud dad moment. Yeah. It's really cool to watch a new technician progressing so fast and getting the wins. It's unbelievable. Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's something for sure.
Yeah. Um, but once they have all that, uh, under their belt, like you said, then you can put the extension on your arm and be able to locate it at a different level. Yep. So, uh, Dan, where can, where can we find you? Where, where do people go online to see what you're doing and what you're up to? Um, uh, we've got our Facebook page, uh, the dent guy, Rochester, New York, and, uh, Our website is maybe the, one of the best websites out there, at least the URL is the dent guy.com, the dent guy.com.
He got the dent guy.com. How cool is that, right? Spent a lot of money for that paid up, but I, I think it's a cool one. Yeah, I remember when we were talking back in the day of what it is. So Dan has got a, a really nice, successful business in Rochester. You guys also do restore effects on the hat there. Uh, but go check out his social, check out his website.
Uh, and you truly are living proof that you can go from body man to PDR tech to successful business owner. Right? Like that is, we're working on the successful business owner, but we're growing every year. Yes. To you body guys, do you body techs that are thinking about it? Just do it. I run into so many 60 and 70 year old body techs.
That are like, man, I should have got into this. I should have got into this. I should have got into this with the advancements today. Oh, yeah. With the training that's available with online training to get you started. You literally have no excuse. Right. To, as to not, you know, just do it. Just do it. So before we wrap up, I don't know if you guys have been paying attention, but we've got this cool little thing sitting on the table here.
Dan got to see it this morning for the first time. I saw it online a few weeks ago and I'm like, Hey Carl, better save one of those for me from our buddy, Carl Stucky. This is the brand new stick light. So I guess it's going to be the Stucky stick light. That's like a tongue to, like Sally sells seashores.
Carl sells, Carl Stucky sells stick lights at StuckyTools. com actually not available at StuckyTools. com. This is a early release. only going to be available at MTE. Oh, in limited production for now. Uh, they're going to be a hundred bucks. This thing is pretty cool. Uh, let me move this out of the way. So it has got one of these automatic suction cups and that just recharges with a USB, the light and the base.
So we just push it down and it sticks. It's on a little ball mount, right? So you can flip back and forth. Now, this is not a replacement for, uh, like the Pro PDR lights to see down in deep dents. Uh, it does not give you that angle to get in there. This, in my mind, and we're going to play with it over the next few weeks, I will have a full review before MTE.
I'm thinking like the perfect cross check light. Yeah. We were using it out there to look at max panel. Exactly. It was great detail. Oh, the fog. Because you know why that fog is white. I was looking at it more like a black line. That's just because you don't know what you're looking at. Um, this thing is pretty cool.
Again, USB C rechargeable on the light. USB we see rechargeable on the base. It has different temps for the, yep. The last two, just a little ball, right? Like a mini, uh, never loose. So if you are lucky enough to get one of these power buttons on down, touch it to change colors, cycle through. And then when it's on, you can touch and hold and bright and dim.
Oh, right. So you can change. That and then just cycle through to turn it off. Uh, haven't tested battery. I literally got this. I came home from work. Uh, I can't wait to put it to use, but I think the stick light from Stucky is going to be pretty cool. Keep an eye out for that full review. Uh, you know what else that would be great for is that, Hey, I'm at a shop or something and I don't want to put my big light up over on the garage door or the cabinet or whatever for a cross check just to get something just to get something to bounce off of.
Right. The finish something out. Yeah. So super excited, uh, to put this through the paces, uh, pricing on it. Introductory is going to be 99. 95. And I think for retail, uh, when it goes into full production, I think he said it was 124. 99. Uh, but anyways, run, don't walk to the Stucky booth at MTE to get this.
Speaking of MTE, January 29th, 101 sessions in the afternoon. If you're getting started, I am doing a glue pull repair 101. Uh, Thursday, a regular education day in the morning. I'm doing unfolding large damage with glue pull repair. You don't want to miss that. That will change your game if you're trying to do large damage.
And in the afternoon, I'm sure this will be a sellout again. We're standing room only cause it's not like extra tickets to get in. We're doing the shop owners round table. Myself, Matt Moore, Corey Kleinfeld, Christopher Ray and Dave Detlaff is joining us this year. Dave is going to have some cool, cool perspective on cutting ties to the hail trail and jumping right into a retail shop in a new city, right?
Like the ultimate hail guy exit strategy. Dave pulled it off. Uh, I'm excited to see what he brings to the table there. Uh, as we tease through the episode today, we've got a brand new course available at OttawaParentsInstitute. com. Go to the learn tab and courses, uh, and that is our intro to PDR, intro to paintless dent repair through GPR, through glue pole repair.
The theory has been tested and proven back here. Check it out. Uh, it's under a hundred bucks, 97 bucks is where we're starting it out. Can't even feel fill your gas tank for that. No. Well, I can't have a smaller tank in my Tundra than you do, but uh, It's got the girly edition. Yeah Check it out. And we're also pulling out of the archives.
We're not going into it here I have not put it out anywhere in the public since 2021 at the Dream Expo my protractor clothes course It's available on the site auto appearance institute. com under learn. It's 27 bucks. I promise you, if you go and buy that course, you will make more money on day one with that.
So that is it. That's also helps support the podcast. If you're enjoying the show, get some courses, get some training. That's what keeps me going here. I use that close all the time. It works. Like it's, it's simple. Anybody I put in the front, I teach them that close. Yep. I don't, they don't buy that course.
They don't do it. 27. You can buy it. It's a, it's under 12 minutes. Yeah. Like it's simple. Yep. But it puts it, it lays it all right out there. So Dan, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. Uh, always enjoy getting to hang out with you. You got to go to dinner last night. It was great. Um, follow us at auto appearance Institute.
Like us, follow us, click it, comment, all that good stuff. Uh, and I will see you at MTE in, was that like three weeks? It's not far. It's not far at all. It is three weeks. Yeah. Cause I'm trying to lose a little bit of weight. I had 23 days yesterday. So I'll see you in like 20 days cause it's tomorrow. Plane seats get tight.
They do. Yeah, exactly. Dan, thanks so much. Thank you guys. We'll see you on the next episode. See you later.
