PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Keith Cosentino: I’m Keith Cosentino, he’s Shane Jacks, and this is the PDR College podcast, the only place on the interwebs where we are going to bring you information about the paintless dent removal business every week. Masterminds in the trade, Shane and I, and we have decided to share our Jedi knowledge with you for free online. The whole point of this endeavor is to make the money. Isn’t that right, Shane?
Shane Jacks: That is right, because the yacht definitely needs to be filled up this weekend.
Keith Cosentino: Filled with what, we’ll leave it to your imagination, but it does need to be filled. You know just this week I have gotten a few more personal messages, like I do every week, but this week was particularly exciting because these couple of fellas that messaged me straight up doubled their income, and they attribute that increase to the knowledge they gained here on the podcast. Is that cool or what?
Shane Jacks: That is freaking awesome. That should be exciting for you guys out there also. Everybody can do it. Just listen to us, listen to others, and put it into practice.
Keith Cosentino: And it’s not like we’ve got some kind of voodoo here. It’s because the way people come up in this business, nobody trains them on selling. They just train them on fixing the dents and then they say, “You talk to this dude, tell him about the dents, and then see if he says yes or no. And if he says no, then talk to the other dude.” That’s it, you know? You could train for two years on selling and one year in PDR and be much better than the guy who trained for three years in PDR and just hit the wall.
Shane Jacks: Had you told me that three years ago, Keith, I would have told you you were a crack smoker. But I believe it now. I bought in myself.
Keith Cosentino: It is the truth, man. It’s really fun. To me it’s a game. Once you learn how to fix a car you get incrementally better when you have new tools and you push yourself. But with the selling, you could double your freaking income this year if you could learn how to market this stuff right and sell it. I think that’s exciting.
Shane Jacks: Yes it is, really exciting.
Keith Cosentino: I won’t say the sky is the limit, because you’re not going to be making 50 Cent money pushing dents, but the limit is way higher than what you think it is.
Shane Jacks: Yes it is. We put these boundaries on our mind, man. Keith, I was setting them a few years ago until you talked me out of it, and now I don’t set those. I still do every now and then and I’m sure you do also at times. But we’ve talked about it before, we won’t go in depth, but we have a dollar figure in our mind that is painful to us when somebody tells it to us, and that’s the dollar figure we tend to not go over with our customers.
Keith Cosentino: Right. You know what would be some cool cross training for us would be to actually sell some yachts or airplanes or something. Like, “Well this thing is $17 million as you’ve equipped it.” Like, “What? This is stupid.” You’ve got to get over that. Or even just sell Louis Vuitton bags for a while.
Shane Jacks: You’ve got to be really careful with those $17 million ticket items because a customer asks for 10 percent off here on a $300.00 dent, it doesn’t hurt so bad. 10 percent off on $17 million, you’re not going to make it long at the leer jet sales department.
Keith Cosentino: And you know, I don’t know anything about buying or selling plates, but I bet the dudes that are buying those things are some of the best negotiators in the world, by definition. If you’re going to amass $100 million.
Shane Jacks: They didn’t get where they’re at by not, for sure.
Keith Cosentino: Right. And it’s like you know what? I don’t really need this plane. I’ve decided I’m going to drive. So thanks for everybody who downloaded the show last week. We had a ton of listeners to that show. That was really cool that Joel came and shared all his inside information. I thought that was noble, I guess, of him to be so forthright. Great lesson for a lot of us. And interesting. The hail trail is interesting, especially for us guys who have never been on it or even seen it. Really interesting.
Shane Jacks: Interesting is an understatement.
KC; So this week I’ve got a little story and I want to ask you, Shane, a question. Before I get to my story I’ll ask the question and then you can think about the answer when I tell my story. One of the things that you are “famous” for in the world of PDR is winning the Dent Olympics in your first try. And that, to me, is pretty awesome because I tried a couple of times and did not place, even though I’m a great technician. In that level I was not great enough, on that day. But you came, first day, first try, and finished the dent with time to spare mind you, and still beat everybody. So I thought it’d be cool if you walked us through step by step, almost like you’re going to train us to fix a Dent Olympic style dent, which is a really small, really deep dent, and fix it to perfection with a sharp tool. So you noodle that around, and then I’ll tell the little story that I’ve got for this week.
I’m not going to name any names because I don’t want to flame anybody, but in my town there is a monster mega dealership, and at this monster mega dealership, there is one PDR guy. And he’s an independent guy and he does a ton of work for these guys, but they know how big they are and they push hard on all the vendors. You know, like iron fist kind of stuff. They know that these guys make 70 to 100 percent of their income from this one store and they can’t afford to lose it. So they push on these guys for lower prices, to be there at the drop of a hat, they sell a car Saturday morning and it has a dent, they want you there an hour later. It’s completely unrealistic. But, they keep doing it. Why do you think they keep doing it?
Shane Jacks: Because they can.
Keith Cosentino: Because they can and they do and the guys freaking bow down all of the time, and it drives me absolutely bonkers, man. Because these guys don’t know that the real riches for them are outside of this place. They’re not inside. But they can’t see outside of the dome. They’re stuck inside the biosphere with Pauley Shore. They don’t understand that there’s a real world out there where people respect you and treat you right because they’re scared. They’re so scared to leave. And that happens when you’re too dependent on one account. So this particular instance, they have what’s essentially a single car price. And you do the cars and at a single car price you try to blow through them pretty quick. So you’re not doing a totally thorough job top to bottom. Well this dude billed them for a car, they sold the car, and then the customer brought it back and said, “There’s hail damage all over this thing.”
Now the kind of hail damage you can miss are little pea dents on a white car, but the particular guy they sold it to was a particular guy, so he got it in his garage, under the lights, and it’s got 100 dents on the hood, 100 dents on the roof, rail, side panels, it’s beat. Now you could argue, like, “How did the dude miss that in the first place?” I don’t know the answer to that question except for the fact that when these places twist your nuts hard enough for the lowest price, the quality is going to suffer. Even if you’re a great tech, you don’t feel like you’re getting compensated properly, you’re not going to go through every car with a fine toothed comb looking for every dent on a rail and a roof. You’re going to do the big door dings on the side and blow through it. That’s the reality of the situation. Everybody knows that. So did he miss it or did it have hail after the fact?
Nobody knows the answer to that question, but the dude came back and then the management gets ahold of the dent guy and says, “Hey, you already billed us for this car. It has dents all over it. You need to fix these dents.” Now I don’t know what you would say, Shane. I sure know what I would say in that situation, even with my very very best accounts. What would you say?
Shane Jacks: Not, “Yes sir.” You need to approach the situation lightly. You can’t just say, “No sir.” Just explain it to him. “Hey, not only did I miss this, you guys missed it also when you sold it.” All of the weight is not on my shoulders. Give them a discount, yeah, but what would you do, Keith? Free? Would you just throw it in?
Keith Cosentino: I would never do it free. Not in a million years. Well okay, the one scenario where I might do it for free is if the GM or the owner of the place came to me and said, “Listen. I don’t expect anything for free, but we’re in a bind on this thing. We lost a ton of money. This guy is screwing us. We don’t think that damage was there but he says it was and of course we want to keep him happy. Is there any way I could talk you into doing this for me and I could do XYZ for you?” Something like that, I would consider it. If the guy came to me –
Shane Jacks: Put it on another car or another group of cars.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah. Even if he was offering me a third of the compensation, if somebody came to me like that, what I would call man to man, or somebody who was dealing with me as an equal, I’d love to do a favor for my guys. I do a lot of favors for them, but I do favors for my guys because they treat me right, and they do me favors a lot of times too. But these guys are just straight up ball busting. So in that situation what I would tell them, and you’ve got to be a little firm with these guys that are a little firm with you. Remember way back when when we started talking about how to communicate with other people and how to speak in the tones they speak and in the levels they speak and use the words they use? When they’re pushing hard on you with this, these guys are bullies. They’re schoolyard bullies, and if you cower down, they’ll just climb all over you. Just like a dog.
If you’re afraid of a dog, it’s going to come and bite you. But if you get in that dog’s face like Cesar Millan and you do that thing where you point at his face, they’re just little punks, man.
Shane Jacks: Can I interject a really quick story to go along with that point? In 2007 my current largest account, other than retail, my current largest account back in 2007 they had a hail storm hit their lot, hit three of their lots, and damaged, I can’t remember, 500 cars total. It’s a pretty big dealership. Well one of them is. The other two are kind of small. But the dent guy that does their service work calls me and he says, “Dude, I have no freaking idea what I’m doing here. Can you come help me?” And I said, “Sure.” So I come in, I give them a price of X amount of dollars for this car per model. You know what I’m saying? It was like $1,100.00 for the Accords, it was something like that, and X amount for the different models. And I said, “If you want us to take the headliners in,” and I was very specific about this. The thing that I didn’t do was put it in writing. He just came out and hit me with it, “Give me a number.” And I did write it down on a piece of paper, but I just told him out loud, I said, “Hey, if you want us to take the headliners down it’s going to be $100.00 more per car. That’s what I’m going to charge you.”
He goes, “Okay.” He goes back in. We get into the meeting and he says, “All right, it’s X amount per car,” and I said, “That is correct. You guys are taking the headliners down, correct?” And he just absolutely blows a lid on me and he said, “No, that’s the price,” and I calmly but sternly, and we’re in front of the entire automotive group’s son-in-law who runs basically the entire dealership group.
Keith Cosentino: Man, what’s the odds of that? The dude that’s so qualified to run all these dealerships just happened to fall in love with the daughter?
Shane Jacks: Yeah, it’s really weird.
Keith Cosentino: What’s the odds of that? It’s amazing.
Shane Jacks: They’re 100 percent in the south because everyone is pretty much related. But anyway, so he says, “No, it’s this, because that’s what you said,” and I sternly told him, “No sir, we talked about it out there. If I was doing the headliners, it was going to be $100.00 more per car,” and he’s just going nuts. And I’m just staring at him. And I calmly looked at him and I said, “Let me tell you something. Every body shop in this area wants me to work for them right now. If you think that I have to have this, you are really sadly mistaken. I want to do your work, but I’m not doing it for that. We talked about it, we shook hands, and we agreed.” And he just stared at me like, “Nobody talks to me like that.” You know? And he comes back, he just, I said, so, and it got quiet in the room, I said, “So what do you want? Do we have a deal or do you want me to walk away?” And he just pointed out to the shop. He said, “Just go out there and work.”
So he comes out about 30 minutes later, he shakes my hand. He says, “I want to thank you for a couple of things. I want to thank you for standing your ground, I want to thank you for not cussing me.” I said, “You will never hear me cuss you. That’s something you’re not going to hear me do.” He said, “Well I don’t cuss people either, but I do get mean,” and I said, “There’s no need in getting mean. I will state my opinion, but I’m not going to get mean with you.” And from that day, I have seen that guy literally push a body shop manager up against a wall. I mean, this guy is kind of intense. But he and I get along unbelievably great, and I honestly believe it’s because I stood my ground and I didn’t back down to him in the beginning.
Keith Cosentino: That is the god’s honest truth because that dude is a schoolyard bully just like I was talking about, and everybody knows that a bully is actually the world’s biggest pussy. And once you get in his face and push back, all they know is dominate or be dominated, and they just roll over and pee all over themselves when that happens. I mean, you might come across a bully that’s tougher than you and it gets physical, but these workplace bullies that I’ve encountered just like that guy, and there’s a lot of them in the car business, as long as you dig your heels in but do it in a polite manner and talk to them with the exact same force that they talk to you with, they’re either going to be your best friends or it’s going to be a huge blow-out. But more often than not they’re going to say, “Oh hey, this guy is great. Because I can’t push him around, I better put him on my side.”
Shane Jacks: With this guy, it was a respect thing. He was like, “Dang, he’s man,” you know what I mean?
Keith Cosentino: No that’s how he spun it. But he’s used to bullying people and he couldn’t bully you, so he needed you on his team after that. That’s how I take those situations. It’s not like he’s out testing everybody and finding out who the real men are. That’s just how he spins it and says, “Well, the reason I can’t push this guy around is because he’s a real man, and I’d better go shake his hand because I don’t meet a lot of real men around here.” That’s how you have to deal with those guys. Even if it’s not in your nature to get in your business, you have to. Otherwise they blow right over you. They smash you right into the ground and they don’t think twice about it. So my answer to the question, when somebody would bring this to me and say, “Hey, we need you to do this for free,” I would just, super calmly, I wouldn’t get upset about this, I’d say, “Well listen. Here’s what we’re talking about. Just so you understand what you are talking about, let me tell you what’s going on with this car. You have roughly $3,000.00 to $4,000.00 worth of damage on this vehicle. Let me just let that settle in for a moment. Even though it doesn’t look like a lot to you or to the customer, if this car was to roll through a body shop, it’s $3,000.00 to $4,000.00 to repair. Now not me or anybody else in this town is going to do $3,000.00 or $4,000.00 worth of work for free. It’s as likely to happen here today for you as it is for you if I just drove into your service department and said, ‘I want a new transmission now for free.’ That’s nonsense. We all come her to work to be paid for our labors.
So, can I give you a deal? Absolutely. I’m going to help you get it done cheap and get it done fast, but the idea that I can do all of this work for free, that’s just not going to enter the conversation anymore past this point. So let’s talk about how much we can do it for and how quick we can do it.” And that’s the end of that. Any more about this free stuff, if you guys want to call somebody else out who wants to take the account from me, if you want to negate our 12-year history of mutual beneficial business relationship because I won’t do $3,000.00 worth of work for free for you, I don’t understand that, but it’s your decision. You go ahead and do that. You want to get some guy that’s sitting around with a phone waiting for it to ring, you want to get him out here to do all your front-line work, I guess you can do that if you want to, but I’m here today, and I’m ready to fix it for you. I just can’t do it for free. Who’s going to argue with that?
Shane Jacks: Only a bully.
Keith Cosentino: Right, and if you just stand your ground, they’re going to pay. Now they might not pay what you wanted. They might pay $400.00, $500.00, $600.00, $700.00 maximum because maybe they didn’t make money on the car, but I’ll take $500.00 over zero and a precedent of bullying anytime. Because make no mistake. These dudes know when they smash you like that and they get something done for free, they’re telling their buddies and they’re remembering that and it’s going to get worse next time. It’s going to get worse and worse and worse until you’re working for nothing. So you fellas out there that have these big stores that you get a ton of work for, first of all I want you to kill that relationship slowly and start finding more work in other places, because it’s a cancer, but secondly, realize the value that you’re bringing to the table. I go to this point a lot, but if you are on a freaking dent removal podcast to try to get better, you’re probably already at the top 10 percent of the industry.
You are a good tech, chances are. Because guys who are hacks, they’re not trying to get better and they’re not listening to this. They’re smoking weed and eating pizza right now when you are working and trying to get better. So understand what you’re bringing to the table. You’re bringing a high level tech to these guys, so don’t let them shove you over. Realize you’re fixing stuff that a lot of guys aren’t fixing, you’re working harder than most guys would work, and that is a ton of value and you’re bringing it to them and they may not notice it or realize it. So dig in a little bit. Be polite, but be firm and be stern. I think that example you gave, Shane, was perfect. You’re in a board room full of guys in suits, one guy is screaming at you. It’s real easy to go, “It’s $100.00. That’s fine,” and that’s exactly what he was counting on. And when it didn’t happen, it took him by surprise, and now you’re on the friends list because of it. So that’s my little lesson for the week, man. Just remember the value you bring. And this goes, to a smaller degree, to your retail customers too. They’re going to try to bully you a little bit, some of them. Realize the value that you’re bringing to the table.
Be stern, but be polite, and try to add more value instead of taking away more money. If you can’t remember anything else, remember that. In a situation where the other party doesn’t feel like they’re getting enough out of the transaction, don’t make it cost less, make it more valuable. Add more service, make the terms more appealing, anything but taking money out of the bottom line, because that’s why you’re working, so remember that.
Shane Jacks: Good one Keith.
Keith Cosentino: Thank you. I was pretty flabbergasted when I heard the story so I thought, “Man, I could talk about this for three hours, or at least 25 minutes.” Right before you tell us how to win the Dent Olympics, I want to remind you about Recon Pro. This is the software that we use for our paintless dent removal businesses. What it is is magic software that lives on your IOS device, iPhone or iPad. You take that rascal with you in the field, you use the camera to scan the VIN of a car that you’re going to write up, you go into the little app and pop the buttons and add the dents and the amounts that you desire. It generates an electronic inspection, or sometimes you’d like to call it an estimate. You can email that to the customer, email it to yourself, or you can just manipulate it right there on the screen. When you’re getting ready to make it an invoice you just click two more buttons and now that thing is an invoice. Email it straight to the customer, mark it as paid.
All the while it is going in nearly real time to the cloud and syncs with your home computer. So everything you scan on the phone, once you’ve pressed enter it’s done, it’s through the airways and back to your computer so you could lose the phone and you don’t lose any information and everything is back at home. It syncs with QuickBooks. It probably syncs with other accounting software that I’m not aware of, but we use QuickBooks and it syncs beautifully with that. It saves us a ton of paperwork time and it makes everything smoother and run in real time. So if you want to get out of paper and into the 21st century, check out automobiletechnologies.com and check out the software called Recon Pro. Tell them PDR College sent you over there and they will take good care of you. Now Shane, tell us how to win the Dent Olympics. We are going to come this year and make you look like a first year technician with the skills that you gave us.
Shane Jacks: Aha. Get it flat. Thanks for being with us today, get better. Keith if I were to – you have to look at every dent differently, and with a Dent Olympics dent, not as much of course. Now they are on different areas of the panel so the amount of flex and the amount of spring in the door is going to be different every year, but it’s not going to be that much different. It’s pretty much straight forward on those doors, on all of the dents. The steps to repairing that dent to what I consider flawless, I mean, it was absolutely flat. I put my light up to begin with and –
Keith Cosentino: How far away?
Shane Jacks: Well you didn’t let me finish. I put my light up to begin with and I had it approximately two feet away, which was way too far, but I tend to, with most all damage, unless it’s really deep, or even when it’s deep, for the most part, I’ve got my light at a greater angle, at a harsher angle than most people do. So when I’m doing hail damage I’m further away.
Keith Cosentino: So farther away, closer to the panel?
Shane Jacks: Correct. When I’m doing hail damage I’ve had several guys come up to me and go, “Wow, your light is really far away,” and I think that really helps my speed, to be honest with you. You do not have to see the center of every single dent, the absolute center, if you know what you’re doing. It takes practice to get there.
Keith Cosentino: I think that’s your trademark term, “If you know what you’re doing.”
Shane Jacks: Well let me explain this Olympics dent. So the light was too far away and I was like, “Wow, this thing is deep.” It was a little deeper than I had thought when I walked up.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, they’re nasty.
Shane Jacks: Yeah, they’re deep and sharp, and it kind of, it kind of reminds you of a golf ball strike without the round bottom, if that makes sense. A little sharper bottom, which actually helps. So I put my light really close at this point so I could see the bottom of the dent. You have to be able to see the bottom of these really sharp, deep dents, and I believe that may be common sense for a lot of people, but I’m going to say it anyway. You’ve got to see the bottom of this dent. Well I’m a sharp tool guy, especially on sharp dents, with stretch, because I believe you have to get the stretch out of the bottom of the dent by tightening the metal up with sharp, short pushes. So I start pushing on this thing and I immediately notice that the area around the dent, the halo, the crown, starts moving. When I see that, when I see that it’s moving and the bottom of the dent, when it’s moving in proportion of, when I say moving, let’s see if I can illustrate this over the airwaves. The crown is pushing up with the dent, okay?
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, the dent is locked up and the whole area is coming up.
Shane Jacks: As soon as I put two or three micro pushes in the center to try to gather the metal just to slide them out in the middle there, Keith, and then I backed my light away a little bit and I started using my hammer and I started tapping down that crown just a little bit, it’s almost imperceptible how much you’re knocking this down. I think that’s where some techs get into a little bit of trouble. They may try to unlock a dent and they knock down the crown around it a little too much to begin with, and they’ve got a little bit of a mess to clean up at the end.
Keith Cosentino: Now can I ask you a couple of questions?
Shane Jacks: Yeah.
Keith Cosentino: So when you’re putting your first push on that thing, are you trying to go to the dead center of that dent?
Shane Jacks: Absolute dead center, yes.
Keith Cosentino: Okay, so you’re going to the dead center for the first push, and of course the second one is going to radiate out of the center. You’re not going to do two pushes on top of each other. And you’re going for straight up perfection with this dent. So the force that you use to make that first push, you’re not looking for any change in the peel for that push, right? You’re not looking for any indication that you made a push.
Shane Jacks: Actually that’s incorrect, Keith.
Keith Cosentino: Okay so you want to see just a little bit of a push mark. Not a high spot, but just a little indication of where you push.
Shane Jacks: It is a little bit of a high spot in the middle of that crater, but it’s tiny. It’s really tiny. And like I said I put three, maybe four, pushes in the center there around each other before I started knocking down that crown, or relieving pressure. Let’s stop calling it knocking down the crown. Relieving pressure on the crown. So I put those three or four pushes right there and you can see them in the bottom.
Keith Cosentino: Okay so you can see those in the bottom. Is that an integral part of this process or was that a slight mistake on your part before you relieved the pressure?
Shane Jacks: No I believe it’s an integral part. I’m going to connect the dots on these dents. I think techs get scared of connecting dots, because they don’t believe they’re good enough to connect two tiny dots that are one and a half millimeters away from each other, right? Well if you use a sharp enough tool, you can, and it’s entirely possible. And on a dent like this, that’s what I’m doing. I would guess that those three or four high spots were a mil to two mils apart from one another. So, then I start relieving pressure around the crown. Then I go back to the center with that again and I start connecting dots, and connecting dots from the center and radiating in a circular panel out. And once you get to a certain, another thing that I think techs do that I am very wary of is once I’ve got that up just a little bit, just knock your light away a few inches, and just keep doing that, and taking that light further back.
Keith Cosentino: So it’s not a big drastic move with the light, it’s just a couple of inches. Just push it back a little bit as the dent is coming up. That makes a lot of sense but I don’t see a lot of people do that.
Shane Jacks: And it only takes a few pushes to get to that point. Because that dent is coming out a little bit, and you want to be able to see the center, but you also want to be able to see all the distortion going on around that dent. Does that make sense?
Keith Cosentino: Oh yeah.
Shane Jacks: Okay, so I’m really mindful of everything. I think techs will get tunnel vision in a dent like this and they’re seeing the center and they’re like, “Okay, there’s my four pushes. I need to connect those four together,” or, “I need to hit this spot right here,” and they’re completely ignoring what’s going on around the dent, what’s being locked up in the center. So I made this pressure release around the dent from the beginning, but I don’t stop. That’s not all of it. The pressure is not all gone at that point. I’m going to relieve enough to where that center will move a little bit without the halo around it moving, and I keep doing that as I’m moving.
Keith Cosentino: Okay, let me ask you a couple more questions here to make sure I’m tracking with you. So when you are relieving the pressure using the blending hammer only, and are you knocking –
Shane Jacks: Yes, that is correct. Well, on that dent I did start off with a knock down. There were several people watching me and I threw it on the ground just to prove a point.
Keith Cosentino: Are you knocking down in 360 degrees around the dent?
Shane Jacks: Depends on the dent.
Keith Cosentino: On this particular one?
Shane Jacks: On this particular dent yes, I believe so. Yeah, from what I remember. Yes.
Keith Cosentino: Sometimes it’s just front and back?
Shane Jacks: Well it depends on where the crown is. Every dent is different. If it’s at an angle, not all dents are coming in at a squared off PVC.
Keith Cosentino: Like these are, yeah.
Shane Jacks: Yeah, and this was pretty uniform, and also pressure on the panel even if it is a straight on shot, it can change the amount of crown and where the crown is. But so after that I just keep moving my light away, and I’m using the sharp tip the entire time. I used, I think, two different tools. The main one was the Ultra tool, and the model number escapes me but we’ve talked about it on the podcast before. That was the main one that I was using, but I also used another tool just with basically the same tip, same sharp.
Keith Cosentino: So the one you’re talking about, I don’t know the model number either, but it’s an Ultra half-inch double-bend bare steel pointy tipped tool.
Shane Jacks: Yes, shaved on the sides and pointed at the end. And that’s what I used for the most part.
Keith Cosentino: How sharp is that tool? Because I don’t own it. Is it the kind, like if you push your thumb on the end it’ll hurt your thumb, like that sharp?
Shane Jacks: No, it’s not that sharp. When I say sharp tip, this tool is; it’s nowhere near some of the rods out there, not even close to that sharp, but it’s sharper than what most techs are going to use to start a dent like that because they’re scared of not being able to see the center and they’re scared of making pushes and connecting the dots.
Keith Cosentino: It’s sharper than a tap down tip, right?
Shane Jacks: Oh yeah, sharper than a tap down tip for sure.
Keith Cosentino: Like a pencil.
Shane Jacks: A pencil that’s been written with for about 30 seconds, if we want to get really precise.
Keith Cosentino: No, because it helps. I file some of my tips down. Super super sharp like it literally sticks in the back of a panel the first couple of times you use it is different than a pencil you’ve written with for 30 seconds.
Shane Jacks: Now something that’s more stretched than the Dent Olympics car, I will use tools like that, because I can cut and buff them at the end and make it look virtually flawless, but on this dent I knew that I could not, I didn’t have the ability to sand and polish, so that’s why I chose the tip that I did. That’s a good question, Keith. It’s not a really really sharp tip, but I kind of took a gamble and said, “I believe this tip is sharp enough to shrink this to the point that it’s going to, I’m going to be able to connect the dots and it’s going to be virtually invisible,” and apparently I was correct.
Keith Cosentino: So everything you’ve done is from one angle at this point, like front to back.
Shane Jacks: No, it was about to come out of my mouth. So I’ve got the mini light on the side of the car. I’ll start the pushes with the mini light, and I’m hanging upside down and pushing, then I will flip my light down, and I am constantly cross-checking on a dent like this, because you do not want to start tracking this thing up. I naturally move in a circular motion anyway on dents, not back and forth or right to left for the most part, and so I tend to stay away from that tracking, corn rows. I call it tracking it up, but a lot of you guys know it as corn rows. So I naturally go in a circle. So that kind of keeps the corn rows away, but I’m still constantly cross-checking mainly from a parallel with the floor angle. That’s why I’m working it to begin with. Then I’ll go a 45 looking down at the floor, then a 90, 45 the other way, you know, and I’m constantly moving my head. We’ve talked about this before on dents. If you’re moving your head, even while you’re working, you’ll see me working on a hail dent and I’m moving my head left to right, 10 to 20 inches while I’m working the thing, and that really really helps you to keep from making corn rows in your dents.
Keith Cosentino: Yeah, that makes a big difference in any repair. Just keep on moving.
Shane Jacks: And the final thing, Keith, I know this sounds quick, but, we’re bringing it up in stages of course. I’m working from the middle out. Bringing it up in one stage, then I’ll get the center up more. You’ve got to get that stretch out of the center. I’m bringing that center up and then I’ll move out. I won’t go quite to the outside edge on a dent like that, because I don’t want to get anywhere near that crown and lock it up anymore, so I’m going center, ¾ out in a circular motion, go back to the center, bring it up in small stages, keep moving that light away. By the time I was done, my light was, actually I didn’t have the mini light. I think I had a stand light. I think I had both, actually, but I had the stand light way far away. I had it up against the ropes, and it’s tight down on the car as visible, and I’ve got my left cheek laying on the car, my head is as far back as possible, and I’ve got my blending hammer extended out as far as possible trying to see what little bit was left.
And I think that gives me and other techs that use a blending hammer a great advantage. The farther away you get, the better you can see these slight waves. So again, just –
Keith Cosentino: That’s how they’re judging them.
Shane Jacks: Exactly. So I’m slowly moving that light in to the point where, I mean, I’ve got my, I said I’ve got my left cheek against the car. I’ve got my left cheek against the car but I’m smushed up against it and my right eyeball, I’ve got my left eyeball closed, my right eyeball is as close to the panel as possible because that’s the only way I can see that light. Does that make sense? That’s how I finished it. So and that, if you want to get something completely flat, that’s the way you have to do it. If you’ve got another hand up there with a knock down and a hammer, you’re not going to get it as flat as somebody if they have the same skillset as you, as somebody using a blending hammer.
Keith Cosentino: So I know sometimes when I’m doing a dent like that I’ll get to that point, and then I’ll bring the light back close again to kind of check for any little pits that I might have missed.
Shane Jacks: Well for me, that’s not wrong, but for me I’m doing that on the way out. I’ll move that light. I said, I’m bringing it up in stages and I’m connecting the dots. I’ll bring it back in once I start that stage again. Does that make sense?
Keith Cosentino: Right. So you’re handling it off the bat, so the pits are gone before you ever get to the long look.
Shane Jacks: Correct. Yes.
Keith Cosentino: All right, so that’s super easy I think. Most of you should be able to win now.
Shane Jacks: Yeah we should have about 14 winners next year. You’re all winners in my book.
Keith Cosentino: Even you, Bobby. Man, that’s cool. So that’s one on one coaching from the guy who won the competition. Basically that’s the same thing he would tell you if you grabbed him right outside in the hallway and said, “Man, tell me what you did to fix that dent.” So even I learned something, and Shane and I talk all the time, so I’m glad you shared that with us.
Shane Jacks: Yes sir.
Keith Cosentino: All right fellas, we’re going to keep it nice and short today. Remember, do not be a bully, add value before you take away money in any kind of transaction where you’re being pushed a little bit, go in a circular pattern and win the Dent Olympics, use Recon Pro, and do not forget to go on to iTunes and rate our podcast. It helps us quite a bit. We don’t ask for much here for providing the show for you, but that would be something cool you guys could do, and if you want to ask questions, feel free to email us or use the speak pipe widget as it’s called on our website. That’s a grey bar with a microphone on it. You click that thing and it opens up a window, and it lets you leave a voicemail with any microphone that’s attached to whatever device you’re using, and we get that in an email and we can answer it here on the show. We actually have one of those on deck right now and we’re going to be answering that question in the next podcast. Interact with us on Facebook, send us an email, give us your questions privately or through the speak pipe thing, and we’d love to help you whether it’s on the show or off. We want you guys to make some more money. So use the podcast and –
Shane Jacks: Get better.
Keith Cosentino: Get better fellas. See you next time.
Duration: 39 minutes
