The beading is stainless steel and the original ones on my car cleaned up beautifully with fine steel wool. Mine did not have any dents or other defects or otherwise new ones would have been purchased. My fenders were painted off the car so when it was time to reinstall them, we bent some of the tabs to hold the beading lightly to the fender and a little "loose" so that the beading was 1/4" or so above the fender line (btw, we put electrical tape on each tab end just to protect the paint in case the beading got loose). With one person holding the beading in this up position, the other person started attaching the fender bolts. Once all the bolts were started, we pushed/pulled on the tabs/beading to align the beading and continued tightening the bolts and rebent the tabs. By the time we got the final fender we really started to get the hang of it /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/lol.gif
One thing I did notice is that the tip and tail of the front fender bead has a different shape. The tip end is more rounded and tail is more squared off. Not sure if the new beading has this detail but check so you install it correctly.
Cheers,
John