brand new forum member. its been a while since ive owned a kettle grill. as luck would have it, i have been blessed with the opportunity to restore a grill cart from my youth....
my highschool girlfriend's dad had a grill custom made to his liking in the early 90's. two kettle grills with a burner on each end of a heavy duty grill "cart". the burners on each end were used to start the charcoal in a chimney and to heat grease for frying fish, chicken, puppies, fires, oysters, etc. no telling how many burgers, ribs, catfish and chicken i ate off this thing.
he passed away in january 1994 at the age of 43 after a hard fought battle with cancer. after he died, i got to use the grill like it was mine. i ended up marrying his daughter in December 1999. 25 months later she and i called it quits and i havent spoken to her since. I left the grill at her mama's house.
In march 2003, she married a friend of mine and they have two beautiful kids. she and my buddy split up in 2009. since then, he and i have picked up where we left off before they got together. (my buddy was not in the picture when she and i split up, but it made for an awkward situation, so he and i werent close from 2002 until 2009.)
while he was married to my ex-wife, he deer hunted at a camp with my cousin and a few other of my good friends. apparently, my deceased ex-father-in-law's grill ended up at my buddy's deer camp, along with the bed i bought when she and i were first married. anyway, when my buddy got out of this deer camp, he sold his cabin to another club member and left my deceased ex-father-in-law's grill on the back porch.
a few weeks ago when i was telling my cousin i wish i had that old grill, he said, "i can get it for you. its at the deer camp and it never gets used." so last night he called and said if i would come get it, the guy whose cabin it was at would let me have it.
after 15 years, i've finally got it back.
i'm getting a sandblaster for christmas this year, and i think one of my first projects will be to restore this grill to as close to original condition as i can. in the last 25 years, the paint has faded and rusted, the jack stand has seized up, the burners are just about rusted out, the gas lines have dry rotted, and the two kettle grills have holes in the bottom and lost some of the plates that manage the air flow. the good news is that the frame is structurally sound and the kettles can be replaced without having to tear anything up. the grates over the burners are square shaped and removable. i aim to have a butcherblock cutting board made to fit in the place of the grates, so it can also be used as a food prep area.
I hope to have it completed by spring.
Topic: after 15 yrs, i got my double kettle grill cart back! (Read 9895 times)