PSA: Hit 500 door dings fixed this month and it made me rethink my whole sanding process

I was going through my invoices this morning and noticed I did 500 door ding repairs this month alone lol. That's way more than I thought. Most of them are the same basic parking lot dents people get from shopping carts or careless neighbors. I used to spend like 20 minutes sanding each one down by hand cause I thought it gave me better control. But after number 400 I started timing myself and realized I was wasting almost 5 minutes per ding doing it that way. So I switched to using a DA sander with 180 grit on a low speed for the rough stuff then finishing by hand. Now I'm averaging 12 minutes per repair instead of 20. That's like 40 hours saved over the month. Has anyone else noticed a huge time difference switching up their sanding method on small dent repairs?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_elliot20d ago

...yeah man that 500 number really puts things in perspective huh. I mean when you're in the middle of it you don't realize how much time you're burning on little habits. I had a similar moment a few months back where I counted up how many hours I was spending on just the sanding stage of small dents and it made me feel kinda dumb honestly. Switching to a DA for the initial pass was a game changer for me too, it just knocks that high spot down so fast you wonder why you ever did it all by hand. It's funny how sometimes the smallest workflow change can save you a whole work week over the course of a month.

bennett.nora20d ago

Honestly I was skeptical but that 500 hours stat completely flipped my thinking on it.