Who is Tim Olson and what qualifies him
to give Paintless Dent Removal Training?
Like most young kids with a beat up car, my first reason for taking auto body and collision repair in High School was just getting my car fixed.
I bought a banged up 1972 Opel GT and it needed a lot of bodywork.
Before tech school the only plastic filler or Bondo I had used was for stiffening the speaker boxes in the back of my car.
My interest in auto body peaked when I found out my instructor was an experienced metal finisher from Michigan. He had learned the old school techniques from a Master Metal Man, then moved to Oklahoma.
Our first lesson in metal finishing was on a VW Beetle roof. Mr. Opdyke cut these tops off and then sectioned them into quarters so 4 students could work on each top. These were ideal because we had back side access, which continues to be a key to paintless dent removal.
Working on these tops, Mr. Opdyke taught us how to “feel” highs and lows with our hands, then he showed us how to get what seemed like a microscopic view of highs and lows with a vixen file.
We also learned about the Bullseye pick, a super accurate substitute for a pick hammer. Even though these tools and disciplines were very old it felt like we were on the cutting edge.
When we entered the work force by getting real jobs in real body shops we found out just how right we were.
You see, metal finishing had gone the way of the horse and buggy with the invention of plastic fillers.
Before this, melted lead or solder was all that was available. It could only be applied in very thin layers or it would crack.
Its limitation also served to enforce the requirement of good metal finishing skills. Since you couldn’t lay it on thick the panel had to be nearly straight without it.
While Plastic Filler has the benefits of being less hazardous, faster to apply, and durability, it also removed the need to carefully metal finish panels.
Little did I know then how those metal finishing skills would serve me in Paintless Dent Repair.
I worked in body shops for eight years, sometimes as metal man, some as combination, but mostly as a painter. I was I-Car certified in 1990.
I first saw paintless dent repair in 1989 at a used car lot. I contracted some of the paint work and bid a conventional repair for a hail car. The manager decided to try the paintless dent repair method instead and was pleased with the results.
I was impressed as well, but could see visible traces in the repair outside in the sun. The bottom side of the hood looked like swiss cheese from drilling of the braces.
In 1992 a high school classmate and friend bought a Dent Doctor franchise in Tulsa, about two hours from my home in Oklahoma City.
He bought a hail damaged car and fixed just half of the trunk. With my painter’s eyes, I saw no traces of where he had worked as I had in other paintless repairs. He repaired it without drilling any holes as well. Most impressive.
A few months later he offered me a position and we moved to Tulsa.
I worked for my friend for three years until 1995 when he sold his franchise and moved away. I discontinued my relationship with the company and struck out on my own.
I formed the company Dent Terminator and still operate a paintless dent repair service with focus on auto body shops and retail customers. In 2007 my son Derek joined me and is fast becoming a better tech than I.
Hail repair is still a favorite of mine and I’ve worked in 9 different states.
In 1997 I trained my first employee and he and his partner have worked in 14 states and five different countries.
Another employee moved to Ft. Wayne, Indiana and runs his own paintless dent repair company, Dent Terminator of Indiana.
To date, I have worked for, consulted with and trained personnel from over 100 body shops all over the world.
In 2003 I searched for and created a better way to train and teach the skill of Paintless Dent Removal.
I studied photography by attending seminars at the Universtity of Oklahoma and taking courses while in High School.
The Paintless Mentor System was a marriage of all these skills. It was released at the end of 2004 and since then hundreds of technicians have used it to discover Paintless Dent Removal and improve their skills.
While many PDR students had some knowledge of paintless dent repair, or sometimes collision repair, most come to Tim with no prior knowledge of removing dents.
If you are in Tulsa, give us a call or stop by our shop and say hello. The map is here: