Welcome to our next How To series.

In this post we are going to show you how to cut out an area of your vehicle to create a space for an external oven. You can use these steps as a basic guide for cutting out any area, not just for something like an oven. This series will also show you how to make up a new door frame from a cut out and also provide steps on building a new inner frame of your vehicle if you have had to cut some of it out for any reason. The can include things like removal of oven or something like what we are covering here.

I’ve finally been able to continue work on the bus after knee surgery. The first job has been to make the opening and door frame for the oven.

We have decided not to have our oven in the bus as we have found in the past that the cooking smells can really stay around for quite some time. Also, if you cook stir fry meals as often as we do or burn meals, smoke from the wok can really make it an unpleasant night in your bus.

The plan is to cut an opening at the rear of the bus that will house an oven that slides out from inside the bus to the outside. A new door made from the cut out steel will provide access to the oven. We will have an awning made up that will give us a closed outdoor living space so the oven will be safe from the elements when cooking.

The oven will, when not in use, live under the bed frame and will be pulled out only when needed. This will also give us valuable space on the inside.

This project will require that an area be measured and cut to size. A new door frame will then be made to reinforce the cut out steel which will be bent to create a new door.

Because we are cutting out pre-existing parts of the bus’ frame, a new frame will need to be made up to ensure it is properly re-inforced.

Items required for this project include:

Part One – Prepartion and cutting out an area of a vehicle.

	The first step is to measure out the area. If you are going to be using this space for something like an oven, make sure you have it’s dimensions and figure that into your equasion. You will also need to allow for things like frame area and tracks. In this case, I will be using a slide track system so will need to allow for this. In this instance, the plan is to cut the back left hand corner to house the oven. It goes without saying that you need to think about where the oven is going to sit when stored on the inside. In our case, the oven will fit under the bed. The black piece you see is my builders square. You can see were i have marked up the inside with black lines. This is were I will be cutting with the angle grinder.
	In this picture you can see that I have put arrows showing you where I will be cutting it through from the out side to the inside. The top arrow is where I will drill one of two small holes from the inside. This will give me the starting point so I can mark the out side for where the opening for the oven door will be cut out to match those marks from the inside.
You can now start to cut out using an angle grinder and the black lines as your guide. These picture shows where I have cut back the bottom sheeting to expose the outer bus shell.
	With the inside of the frame now cut away, we turn our attention to the outer shell of the bus. Earlier, I described the arrow drawn on the interior showed where I would be drilling a small hole. This is used as a guide to know where to start marking out the area to be cut out.
	Using the drilled holes as your guide, you can mark out the area of your new oven. When you have drilled the two holes, you mark a line from hole to hole, and then you use a builders square to mark all of your vertical lines and horizontal lines. Note You do not use a level other than using it to draw a straight line.
And now the fun begins! Using your angle grinder, you can now cut out the area. When you have your cut out, put some where safe as this will soon be a new door.
	And now you should have a lovely cut out area.
	Here is a shot from the inside cut out. I will need to cut all of the frame so that we have an un-obstructed opening. A new square tube frame will need to be made to pick up all of the area cut out to give strength back to the bus framing.

In the next series, we will show you how to turn the cut out into a new door and make up a frame to replace what has been removed from the bus shell.

Thanks and see you next time!

I found this video on youtube.com from 1937 that Chevrolet produced. It’s all about RV life and is a fascinating look back. I especially like the comment about the wife not having much housework to do.

It is also interesting to note that the premise of living life on the road really hasn’t changed all that much. I find that rather comforting is such a face paced world.

My daughter and her partner have just returned from a short vacation to Queensland and they mentioned that during their travels they heard of women who were traveling on their own around Australia.

This got me to thinking about web resources for women who are or planning to travel. I think it is incredible that women are prepared to give it a go. The safety issue alone is not one to be taken lightly these days and when you think about all the other components that go into living on the road, well, I just think they are incredible.

I will start to add resources that I find that are related to women and rv’ing as I find them.

This website, RVing Women is very comreshensive and well worth a look and a good one to start the ball rolling!