Well here's one that might leave you shaking your head saying, "what a dumb fucher."
Over on the Samba is a thread on refurbishing the early metal charcoal canisters by drilling a hole in the two-port end, dumping out the old charcoal, refilling with fresh and installing a plug. Sounds simple enough. DON'T DO IT. It will ruin your canister. Ask me how I know.
Okay, I don't give up that easily. With a ruined canister in hand, I figured I might as well figure out how to open it up and see what is inside. The dissection was pretty brutal, but it led me to a somewhat easy way to refurbish these early canisters. First, let's look at the guts and why just drilling a fuching hole in one end is a stupid-ass idea. On the right is a stack of screens and filters that now have a nice 1-inch hole in them because I stupidly believed what I read on The Samba. The plastic plug is what will be used to plug the now unnecessary hole. On the right is why drilling a hole is a stupid idea. A stack of a wire screen, coco fiber filter, and perf metal screen all spring loaded against the cap to hold the carbon pellet charge nice and tight. Take a guess what happens to that spring-loaded stack when you dump the charcoal out... That's right. It rattles around loose inside a can and you are fuched.
Click to view attachment Alright, how do we fix this turd? Well, the can ends are crimped and rolled and there isn't a clean way to unroll them. So here's what you do. Flip the thing over to the single port, spring-loaded side and grind the edge off the rim. I used an 80 grit disc on an angle grinder and it was quick and easy to grind away until the layers of metal separate. You can see the seam opening opposite the grinder.
Click to view attachmentNow you can empty the can, replace the screen stack in what is now the bottom and refill with fresh charcoal. I tried to find special vapor grade charcoal but could only find it for sale in bulk, so I used aquarium charcoal. The three pound bag I bought was not quite enough so I topped off with some of the original charcoal. You want it about a half inch below the lip of the can. This pic is before topping it off.
Click to view attachmentReassemble the screen/filter stack on top of the charcoal and put the springs on with small ends up. There are indentations in the lid that hold them in place.
Click to view attachmentThen put a generous bead of sealant around the lid flange. Make sure it is gasoline resistant. Yamabond worked really well. Press the lid in place until the edges are flush and clamp until the sealant sets.
Click to view attachment Now here's the trick to finishing it off and also the tricky part. Bend a strip of thin (26 gauge) metal in half and cut it to about 1/8" wide. Open up the crimp so you can get it on the can edge. Run a file or sandpaper over the cut edges to smooth them or your likely to slice the shit out of yourself in the next step.
Click to view attachment Now you have to work the strip onto the ground edges of the can and crimp it on as you go. This would be easy if the strip was preformed into a flat oval to match the can but mine was all twisted and deformed from the cutting and had to be formed as I crimped. Bending the strip around the ends was the hardest because the groove closes up and has to be wedged open with a screwdriver blade frequently.
Click to view attachment Click to view attachment Eventually the strip is formed and crimped tight to make a nice finished edge. The only thing left is to paint it. And wall-A, a nice refurbished early style charcoal canister.
Click to view attachmentBTW, if you didn't follow the how to make orange peel thread, I found Eastwood Rubberized Rust Encapsulator does a nice job of matching the original finish on the canister.