Thanks for the support! I am a member of several groups on FB and such and the work I see these guys turning out is incredible, makes me feel like a total schlub (not to mention Jerod Broussard and Ahumadora !). But I am enjoying myself and making progress, which is what really matters.
I've got several to build out over the next year or so, I think, it'll take a while. But this weekend I'm going to learn to build a trailer with Frank Cox, I hope, so that's a skill I really need for a couple of these big builds!
Last week was pretty productive on this build. On Thursday I did end up welding up my hinges and cutting out my door. I didn't do it perfectly, as with everything I do, lol, but it is my first time. At least I'm not working in the dark in the back seat of a Mustang...
Anyways, on to the pics.
Hinges and door handles mounted up:
Finally made the cut!
I did have a tiny bit of door warpage, this is the worst spot -
This is a thin tank, only about 0.155" and the warp there is about the full thickness of the door. It shouldn't be a big deal to hammer that out (as Ahumadora always tells me, "Big fuhggin' hammah!"). It's actually warped inward just at the spot I did the weld filling up above, so I'm sure the heat into that thin metal had a little to do with it. But it shouldn't be a problem to get reshaped a bit. Overall, I'm pleased with it.
I did have one weld I was pretty happy with! lol
I know it isn't perfect, by any means, but I did have slightly more consistent welding performance at this stage, and I'm learning to dial in my settings a bit more when welding on different materials. It helped that I really worked to clean up the area I was welding first, I think. Wasn't able to get ALL the mill scale off, but I did get a good bit of stuff off, and all the rust, etc. Prep work is time consuming, but it does pay off in results.
That was Thursday evening. Friday I drove up to Rolla, MO and spent 2 days with Frank in his shop working on a couple of YUUUUGE smokers he is building, hanging out with Frank and Aaron (@mrvoigt), a friend of his who helps in the shop and does AMAZING metal art stuff. Man, these guys are TALENTED!
Oh, and in the process of yesterday doing door work on a big smoker he's building, Frank helped me come up with what I think is the perfect idea to fix my other build, the big 320 gallon tank that is currently stalled. So stay tuned for an update on that one!
I do think I'm going to go out today and work some more on my pull handle and might even mount up my 2nd tank to this one, not sure yet.
Let's face it, most of what I post is a lot of stuff showing how I screw up, redesign and rebuild, etc. I'm kind of working my way through this process, and I'm definitely an amateur and learning as I go. Half of how I learn is watching others and stealing their ideas (sorry!, lol) and half is through screwing up and making my own mistakes and learning from them - or I HOPE I'm learning, anyways.
Frank says I'm one of those guys who JUST. WON'T. SHUT. UP. I know... I like to post. If I'm not at my day job, I'm at the shop or at home on the intarwebz. So I like to be working, or sharing and learning. But I'm hoping that by posting some of my screwups, I'll help someone else learn and avoid some of these same mistakes.
So yesterday I went out to the shop, farted around a bit, decided, I'm gonna do my door trim. I have 2 sizes, 1½" and 1¼" in a .125" thickness (1/8"). I decided, I'm gonna use the 1¼", since this is my smaller smoker. I need to use the 1¼" on something, so the smaller choice is the one to do.
Oh, and I took a BFH to the door, straightened out some minor deflections and deformations I had. It's a pretty thin tank at 0.155", so a 3 pound sledge was plenty to get the variances taken care of, and I am happy with it.
I actually enjoyed the process of measuring and cutting the door trim. It's a little 'tedious', but it was fun. I got to welding it and tacked a few places - corners, around the hinges and then every 2" down the verticals on the side.
First problem... I tacked the right side first, moved to the left side, was setting my clamps and getting ready to tack and I heard a loud *bong* as the tank popped a little bit and I noticed my top right corner CAME loose! WTH?!?!?! So I went back and clamped it down and made the tacks heavier and then came back to the left. The tacks held, but I wasn't confident, so I decided to make the tacks into 1" or so welds. But they just weren't coming out right. Most of them were thicker and more caterpillar-ish than I liked, I stated getting some porocity and just did NOT like the way they looked.
Please don't judge too much - here's what they looked like.
You can see they don't look very good overall. I just didn't like them.
So... I am sure you guys have figured out my problem in a hot second looking at my setup here. It is pretty obvious to me now, and I can't believe how stupid I was... I think I was just in a bit of a hurry to get started and I enjoying working in the shop, so it was one of those, "READY! FIRE! AIM!" moments, you know?
So my problem was... I didn't clean the door! I didn't grind, polish or anything! I was a bit short on welding gas... like, running on fumes, and also I didn't grind off any of my rust, paint or mill scale! I was trying to weld through all that crap!
I decided I didn't like the way any of that looked, and it wasn't holding well, so I decided to cut all that crap off, scrap it, and start over.
So now, here is my tank, all prepped and ready to trim out again. I'm sure when I redo this trim, NOW it will hold a helluva lot better!
Oh yeah... and my even BIGGER revelation of the day...
MILL SCALE FRIGGING SUCKS!!!!
That crap is a major PITA to get rid of.
Oh yeah, and I got my pull handle finished, too, thanks to needed supplies from Frank Cox! Thanks Frank!
This afternoon - is probably a repeat of the door trim (hopefully with MUCH better results!), and/or probably cutting the hole in the exhaust end of my horizontal tank to mate up the 30 gallon vertical tank for hanging meats like sausages, chickens, etc. That's a bit of a 'pucker moment', as cutting that hole is a point-of-no-return moment. Once I cut it, there's no going back, and no further modifying my plan. I'll be fully committed to the horizontal + vertical setup, so it's a little unnerving.
So that's today's dissertation... I worked a bunch out of town this weekend up at Frank's shop in Rolla, so this was my first day back, and even though I had some setbacks, some forehead-slapping Homer Simpson "DOH!"-type moments, I learned a bit. So I'm still happy. Still a good day!
Oh yeah, and I may have to end up going with the 1½" trim now, since I've kind of marred up the door with having to cut off the 1¼" I had installed. I'll mock some up tomorrow and see. I'd really like to still use the 1¼", as I have it laying around and can't think of another time I'd use it, and the vertical tank I am planning is only 17" dia (the main tank is 20" dia), so I think the 1½" would just be too wide looking for it.
We'll see on mockup how it'll hide my mistakes.
If you stuck around to the end, thanks for hanging with me! lol
I don't find flap discs work that well. They glaze over way too easily. I'm evaluating other methods... this one today I just took a hard grinder disc to it, then used a flap disc to smooth it out a but, but it still has tons of marks. Luckily this isn't supposed to be 'purty'.
DogFaced PonySoldier I'm dealing with new 11 and 14 gauge, I don't need to gouge anymore than necessary. Mentioning "new" makes me sound like the gator pit guy.
Yeah, this tank is OLD with LOTS of rust, paint and SUPER THICK mill scale. Our other metal which was new a few months ago and now just sitting out in the elements a bit isn't nearly as bad.
One thing I noticed in laying this stuff out - my hinges aren't perfectly level with each other. <sigh> I tried, I spent over an hour laying those things out, trying to get them right. Somehow I screwed it up. But... onward...
Welded on one of my clamps. lol. Idiot. lol
Finished out trim:
Overall it looks a ton better than the first attempt, I would say....
Decided to reward myself, sit and have a cig and a nice brew in the door of the shop for a while in the cool night air, listened to some tunes (Pink Floyd last night, I believe) and just enjoy the cool night air. It was pleasant.
And lastly, I marked out a spot that I THINK I'm going to cut out in the head of the tank opposite the firebox, to add in my vertical 30-gallon tank. This will be a chamber for something like hanging sausages, etc. Or if I can get it hot enough, maybe chickens or something. It's only 17" dia, so ribs might be tough to do flat, but hanging them could work.
I'm a little apprehensive about cutting that circle. But I have this 30 gallon tank and I need to do SOMEthing with it. This is about the best use I can come up with - unless I mount it directly over the firebox with a passthrough for heat - then I could REALLY get it hot. I'm not sure I like the aesthetic of that, though. I'll go back to my 3D sketches and see what I think now that I've given it a few weeks to percolate.
What do you guys think? Lower-temp chamber on the exhaust end of the cook chamber or potential high-heat tank just above the square firebox? I can set it up to damp that down for lower heat, of course.
Yeah, I'm probably OVERthinking.... but the more I THINK about it, the more I think I want to do a Bingo, Jr. That's an imitation of Frank Cox's Bingo smoker, which means the big tank on the end, and I'll add the small tank over the firebox. That's where I'm starting to lean, anyways...
Last night I was a bit distracted, texting back and forth with my son, who was in Norman, OK for a Technology Students Association state conference. He and his classmates were sheltering in a stairwell at the Embassy Suites in Norman due to being under a tornado warning. He sent me a pic from his phone of a rotating wall cloud with a lowering that I think became a funnel he took from his hotel room window. They sheltered for an hour or hour and a half, he said Norman got some baseball-sized hail, but in the end, a couple of touch-and-go tornados, I think, nothing major, so praise God for that!
Anyways, this is what I was trying to work on in the shop in the middle of all of this back and forth:
Some sliders:
Didn't take any in-process pics, I was too distracted with all that was going on. But this is how it ended up:
It's not the fanciest grate ever, but it's mine. And the first I've done, so I'm pleased. I managed to get it square and pretty well keep it that way, too! 46 7/8" from corner to corner, both ways! W00T! Also, I put the expanded metal in that direction specifically for ease of cleaning. The expanded metal on the top grate of my Yoder is the other direction and I hate it. When you try to brush it, you're brushing across the diamonds and it flings crap back and forth, etc. I just thought this would be nicer to brush it sort of 'with the pattern'. I dunno.
Not much of an accomplishment, but it strikes me that if I were building this as a charcoal grill, it would essentially be done now! Wow. lol
Still got a LOT of work to do, though. But, the good news is, I finally scraped together some money and I can go buy some steel plate and actually start to work on my firebox, hopefully this weekend! Double-W00T!
Oh yes, and this is the pic my son sent me that sparked the Tornado Warning:
<edit> I heard this morning there was a small town called Cole, just south of Norman, heavy damage, at least one person killed. So they're the ones who took the brunt of it, also Shawnee, OK got hit pretty hard, I heard. Dunno, but definitely prayers go out to those folks. Glad my kid and his classmates are safe, but it's always tragic when weather strikes like that.
Here in my neck of the woods we are DRY DRY DRY and need some rain - this year's "April showers" have been nothing but wind.
Locally, we show 7.0" of rainfall in the last 120 days. Ouch.
Great work! Recycling used materials comes with it’s own headaches and rewards. Your progress as a fabricator and welder are fun to watch. As one who tested welders for over 20 years, no one starts out great, it’s a process. Your coming along fine, especially with the challenges your materials are handing you. Only one question, how close are those rubber tires going to be to the fire box?
Only one question, how close are those rubber tires going to be to the fire box?
Great question!
That rear axle is only tacked on to the cart right now, it will be moved back about 16-18" when the firebox is built and attached. More like what you can see on Marcus' cart here:
Actually, the firebox, I will be starting this weekend. It is going to be 18" .250 wall pipe, 26-30" long (still haven't decided), surrounded by 2" of insulation and skinned with a 22" square shell of 3/16" plate. Heat should not be a problem on the outside of the firebox.
However... the outside of the box is 22", the axle is 33 or 34", I believe. When I measured, I think I calculated 4" between the outer firebox wall and the inner portion of the tires, so I don't expect there to be a heat issue. In addition, the axle is going to be mounted on the bottom of the firebox, but now that I have everything built except the firebox, it looks like the firebox is going to be a bit higher than I thought, and there will be also another 3-4" between the firebox and the rear axle, which will be on standoffs to the bottom of the firebox.
So in the end, the wheels will be just at the bottom of the firebox, maybe the top of the tires will be 1-2" above the bottom, with about a 3-4" gap from the metal, AND about a 4" insulated gap (because it will be the corners, not the middle) to the inner hot pipe.
So, somewhat by planning, and somewhat more by accident, the tires should be cool as a cucumber.
Finished up the grates on my smaller cooker today.
43" x 19" bottom grate
43" x 14" top grate
Total 1419 square inches - more than a Yoder YS640S (1070 sq in), more than a Yoder Loaded Wichita (1275 sq in) not counting the searing grate in the firebox.
Took me three times putting the grate sliders in the top, cutting them out the first time to get it more level side to side, then cutting them out the second time to move them a little inward - there was just enough room you could get the top grate to fall out while inside, I was off by less than 1/4". A little annoying to slide your grate out a bit, get it a little cockeyed and have it fall down on top of your briskets or butts!
Did a little corner job on the upper sliders to make it impossible to catch the corner on your arm reaching inside.
Lotta work due to my poor skills and having to repeat work over a couple times, but I'm finally happy with them
Ended up with about 7" between the bottom cooking surface and the bottom of the top grate. Enough for all but the tallest brickets and butts, in my experience.
Enough room for 4 long racks of ribs on top, or 6 racks probably for competition trimmed St. Louis ribs. Laying flat I'd say 15 racks of timmed St. Louis.
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