Love'n the grinder

Today was a productive day. I got my yard work done early and the old tractor cleaned up for sale, but the buyer did not show. Hopefully he will on Sunday so I can add some $$$$$ to my trailer fund.

My hot water heater is from Precisiontemp. It is the RV500 which looks like a normal HW heater but has a flush mount option on the door with a brushed aluminum panel. The frame that I received was a bit beat up so Fred at precisiontemp is going to send me a replacement, but it was good enough that I could plan the cut out.

The goal was to minimize the amount of skin cut for the HW heater. Remember that I have this long hatch on the street side, which looks a bit odd. You can see a picture in my previous post. I have to rebuild the hatch anyway so I removed it all together. Took me awhile to drill out all the rivets and remove all this crappy sealer. What a mess. I'll clean it up with the soda blaster later.

What I am doing is taking half of the hatch, cutting the door in half and using the remainder space for the HW heater. Per the instructions I used the frame as my template to scratch on the pattern. Then I took the grinder and cut out the pattern. I haven't used the grinder much in the past, but it cuts the aluminum like butter. My Friend Bill gave me it for xmas and for this job it is super! I took my time and nibbled awy at it. I tried using the air nibbler and the air grinder, but the electric grinder with the metal cutting disk and grinding disk was the dogs balls.

Here are a couple pictures.






Here's a picture of the dickinson heater chimney. Needs some more cleanup but you get the idea of what it will look like.



Doug