cutting top for keggle, $#?&*@@!!!!

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I went through this a few months ago- I had a grinder but was worried about the diameter of the wheel- would make for a choppy cut I thought. I also had a dremel, and a friend with a plasma cutter. Reading online I was scared away from the plamsa cutter because several people said that the slag thrown off from the torch would embed itself in the inner wall of the keg and rust. Others said that the mitigation for that was to fill the keg part-way with water. I saw all of that as too much trouble and too much risk (couldn't figure out (even with instructions! :eek:) how to completely remove the spear from my Miller and AB kegs so I could put water in). I opted for the dremel, and while I went through about 2.5-3 heavy duty (fiber reinforced) cut-off wheels per keg, I got amazing results. It did take about 90 minutes per keg, but it wasn't too loud (a la reciprocating saw or grinder), left no residue (ostensible from plasma torches) and yet made a near perfect circle (a doubt I had about 4.5" cutting wheels). Turns out that the regular HD cut off wheels (about 1" in diameter, usually available in packs of 30 or so) did as well as the more expensive reinforced wheels- I think the thinner kerf reduced wear somewhat, although I went through a hell of a lot of them. They're cheaper than the big 2" wheels tho (I bought a pack of 5 of the previously mentioned 2" wheels, but didn't have enough to finish to my second keg- at $10 for 5, I opted to use my inventory of regular wheels...one sleeve was enough to finish a keg). The dremel isn't ideal, but it shouldn't be at the bottom of the list!
 
When I made my keggle, I just took a string connected to a marker and outlined my circle, then free hand cut it with an angle grinder. I used nothing more than a 4.5 inch grinding disk. Turned out perfect. The trick is to make a shallow pass, then on subsequent passes apply more pressure to cut it out.
I had some clean up to do but not much.
 
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