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Author:
Tom the Elder (CA)
Finally – if anyone is still interested – here is what happened (see photos here: [s1048.photobucket.com]).
The Dremel was very effective in cutting of the flange. The corners were a little difficult but the biggest problem was that whenever the cutting wheel penetrated below the brass into the grout it wore down the wheel very quickly. The bad news is that removing the flange did nothing to loosen the curved, recessed part. Cutting the bottom from the back didn’t help either. Using a chisel and hammer on the grout exposed by removing the flange finally loosened the parts once I got deep enough. It turns out that the top and bottom each had two metal tabs that extended into grout (see photo).
The entire area behind the dish was filled with two kinds of grout, which I needed to remove because the new dish is held in place by a screw through the back. Immediately behind and below the dish was medium grey, very fined grained grout that was about 1/4-inch thick and hard as iron. Behind that was typical light grey sand grout. My masonry bit barely touched the fine grained stuff, and it wasn’t easy getting through with a chisel. I chipped a line of holes on about 1/2-inch centers across the grout, drilled each all the way through with the masonry bit, then used the hammer and chisel to break out the grout. Two lines of holes was enough to get me to where you see in the photo.
Part of the reason the dish was held so tight and was so difficult to remove is that there was a stud on the right side of the grout with steel mesh nailed to it that was embedded in the grout. As can be seen in the photo, the grout filled the full thickness of the wall back to the oak plank on the other side. Also, there is a fire block across the top of the opening and the grout filled up against it.
I did all this last Saturday but didn’t have time to post until now. Bottom line is that the old one is out. It will take some time making a solid backing for the flange of the new one, but nothing I can’t handle.
I have decided to leave the old TP roll holder alone.
Tom
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Author:
vic
Appreciate you getting back to us and sharing your experiences. Thanks.
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Author:
hj
The only thing about this part of the story that is different, is that you originally implied that the dish was "loose" which would have meant the material had not bonded to anything in the wall. The hard stuff is probably Plaster of Paris, since we used it because of its fast setting time. The two "flanges", which I described in an earlier posting, were so the material adhered to the soap dish.
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Author:
LemonPlumber (FL)
Glad to hear you had some success removing it.ain't little projects more fun than they should be sometimes.
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