[Bob Carriere]

Everyone knows that storing your CMP in a relatively air tight, fire proof and secure space is the ultimate. Well a "sea can" can accomplish all of these BUT it has the disadvantage of being very narrow. Been using a sea can for quite a few years since the cab 11 chassis was mobile under its own power. Crawling over the rear section of the frame was fine for a while but since I have installed the cab and rear cargo box it has become a Yoga exercise everytime I want to take the truck out.

So we designed a door that would open..... inline.... with the driver's door of the cab 11. Measured at least 3 times than cut. The task was complicated by the sea can location 100 meters from the barn and nearest power source. so we used the backup house generator which powered the plasma cutter quite efficiently. The vertical cuts, from the inside, using a guide bar, were by far the easiest. The remaining cuts were done with a hand held 4.5 in. rectifier grinder. It would have been nice to capture the moment the cut out section fell down..... but all hands were on deck and the section quite heavy.

The section of the sea can we removed will be recycled as the door skin. The door frame is a 2 in. square tubing and the door perimeter will also be a 2 in. tubing. The frame is now installed and the door done but will be part of my next posting with photos.

It is amazing how much light gets in the container when that section is removed.

Finally tested the opening by driving the cab 11 back in place. Plenty of room to enter and exit and access to the battery box for the Winter months.

Eventually a small 2 step wooden landing will be built for the benefit of my sore and old back.

Details of progress will follow.

Bob C

The once orange Sea can recently paint with a home blend of multiple leftover oil based paint and resulted in 3 gallons of dark near OD green!!!!