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" &amp;quot;It took us a good week or two to figure out how to even cut into a gas tank,&amp;quot; says one half of the Lizana-Pogue pair, a team of contractors who ponied up $75 to buy an excavated fuel tank that eventually became the Connecticut cookout sensation known as the Grilla. The two were concerned about the incision to create a hinged lid opening causing a spark, igniting flammable fumes lingering inside. &amp;quot;We ended up just using a leaf blower on one end to blow it out, and didn&amp;#039;t smell any fumes.&amp;quot; Then Pogue set to it with a Sawzall.  Before we go any further, a word of caution here from PM senior home editor Roy Berendsohn: &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re lucky they weren&amp;#039;t killed.&amp;quot; Berendsohn tells a story of a friend named Steve who, welding an old gas tank like this one, miraculously survived an explosion that popped the ends off the tank like a firecracker. &amp;quot;He says, `One minute I&amp;#039;m standing there welding the thing, the next, the tank ends are blown out and I&amp;#039;ve got this ringing in my ears. It happened so fast, I couldn&amp;#039;t believe it. Guys were running around everywhere, asking me if I was alright.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; As for the tank-to-Grilla conversion, Berendsohn says, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s suicide.&amp;quot; Despite the risk, Lizana and Pogue lived through the initial incision and went on to &amp;quot;grind the crap out of it&amp;quot; to remove years of paint and rust. For handles, they used &amp;quot;stainless-steel handicapped rails we got from the dump.&amp;quot; One-inch angle irons became ledges for three mesh grates, which can hold about eight beer-can chickens. The grates open independently to stoke the fire, a task performed with a hoe or shovel. Salvaged pipe made the smokestack, scavenged door hinges became the lid hardware, and hood springs scrapped from a mid-1980s Chevy pickup support the lid, which was &amp;quot;pretty heavy&amp;quot; before the springs lightened the load by &amp;quot;a couple hundred pounds.&amp;quot;  The team worked a 40-hour week, on top of their day jobs installing solar panels and other GC work, to complete the Grilla for its inaugural home-brewed beer and bluegrass festival back in 2005. Since then, it&amp;#039;s been to &amp;quot;at least seven parties and three or four weddings,&amp;quot; says Pogue. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s been to every wedding I&amp;#039;ve been to.&amp;quot; But Lazana cautions that the Grilla is &amp;quot;a blessing and a curse,&amp;quot; adding that friends now invite them to events expecting the cooker in tow. The pair plan to someday weld the Grilla to a trailer to ease its mobility. But more immediately, perhaps this Thanksgiving, the grill&amp;#039;s rotisserie feature--an as-yet-untested skewer represented only by unfilled knockout holes on opposite sides of the tank&amp;#039;s edge--may get its shot at a beer-can Butterball. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/interior-projects/how-to/a13091/4337435/>