And the 4 shall become 1

[lazy]

A word of warning right off the bat: If you're one who thinks I am too long-winded, just skip this and save yourself some aggravation...

I picked up a good-sized Charboil grill off the street corner a few weeks ago. One of my coworkers told me about it, so I went to check it out and found a good solid lid and a mostly-there frame, but the bottom of the grill totally gone. Here's a shot of it from the back:


I've had a refurbished 55 gal barrel sitting in the drive way for a couple months now, and it really looks tacky, so it's time to build it or pass it on.

SWMBO as "hinted" that it would be nice to have the smoker herd on the patio thinned out a bit, but I've been dragging my feet in doing so. I have my two drums, the Duo, the bottom third of a drum I use to put my charcoal basket in when I'm filling it (and to hold my chimney when I light it), and an old gasser I picked up at a local thrift store. The gasser acts as storage for gloves, thermometers, etc.


My original drum won't accept a dome lid without beaucoup work, and I'm lazy. I'm taking all the parts off of it to make this new one, with two racks and a dome.

So--old drum as a parts donor, old Charbroil as a frame donor, another gasser as storage donor, and a refurbished barrell for the new UDS. I think I can make this work with a bit of shade tree engineering. We'll see.

[lazy]

I knew the frame would need some reinforcing to work. A couple pieces of angle iron I had laying around would go across the frame side-to-side to tie the legs together and support the drum:


The lid made a fairly steady work surface for trimming the angle iron. I can't believe the abuse my little Dremel has taken. This thing is awesome!

Needless to say, it was wobbly as a rusted-out Vega at this stage, so I started taking a good look at the frame on the little gasser. I was amazed that between the two old grills, I only had to grind and chisel 4 bolts. Everything else came apart with a bit of PB Blaster and elbow grease. I figured if I put a piece diagonally between the bottom of the frame and the upright, it would give that triangulation thing to make it solid. A bit of trimming with the Dremel, a square and a couple of clamps, pieces of the little gasser made great supports.


That helped cure the wobblies in one direction, but the uprights were still wobbly front to back. Another piece off the little gasser, a bit of time with a hammer to straighten a couple of corners, and voila--a support across the two to stabilize things in that direction:


I used self-drilling screws to hold everything together. I also learned that Black & Decker Wallyworld drill bits suck. Busted 2 of them on this thin metal. Can't imagine what it would be like using them on heavier material.

By this time, I was too danged hot to work on it any more today. I will finish it in the morning. Here's the general idea of what I'm going for, but I have more stuff to add...

[O B City]

Where does the ice chest go? You gonna add an umbrella holder too?

[O B City]

Of course I am just kidding, you have already accomplished more than I could ever hope to. I would have hit the brace problem and said "welp, I am done here".

[peculiarmike]

Keep those pics coming!

[lazy]

There ought to be an ugly award for these things. This is getting to be an example of of the 5 P's...

Figured out how to use the uprights from the old gasser to mount the clamshell onto this (badly basterized) frame. Couldn't for the life of me figure out why one side was 4 inches or so shorter than the other. Looked at the two uprights I didn't use, and I had another unmatched pair just like these. Evidently the two ends were different?? This is ugly as sin, but it helped take out some of the wobbly...


I took a fabric tape and wrapped it around the drum. Divided the total circumference by 3 and marked the tape with a Sharpie. Using the metric side of the tape made the cipherin' easier.

This metal piece was left over from the junk gasser, so I whacked off a chunk, used the Dremel to make a make 2 inches down. Flip the barrel over, use magnets to hold the tape, hang the 2-inch marker over the edge of the drum, and mark my intake locations with the spring-loaded center punch. Even with the center punch, these B&D drill bits wander all over the place.

Here it is more or less complete. I have to add the thermometers below the grates, and add another cross brace at the drum end. I ran a bolt through the drum into the crossbrace that was already there. With a wingnut on it, it will be easy to undo to dump the drum if necessary. I usually just use an old shopvac to clean out the ashes, so I'm not too worried about that.


The biggest weakness to this whole thing (well, one of many, actually) is the angel iron base. It's way too small/light for what I'm doing. It should probably be inch-and-a-half or two inches. Then of course, we have the "plan it as I go" planning process, the use of whatever materials and fasteners I have laying around, and the fact that I'm not the brightest bulb in the box..

[Buzzwinder]

Interesting, but Cool! Fire it up!

[PigCicles]

Looks like a fine build it as you go project to me. Let's see it burn some meat. I like these kind of projects and hope to see more of them from ya.

[lazy]

I'll fire it up Friday and see how it runs. It's just too blasted hot to spend any more time today. I was a bit woozy when I came in yesterday, so I took it in smaller batches today, and it just took longer than I expected.

Every summer is one summer closer to getting out of this state. The youngest will be out of high school in two more years, and unless we need to stay for college residency requirements, we're outta here. I would move back to IN in a flash, but SWMBO hates snow. There's got to be somewhere in this country where it's not so blasted hot in the summer and has minimal snowfall in the winter.

As I was working on it today, our new neighbors came walking by and asked where I got the barrel. My immediate thought was another drum in the neighborhood, but they just wanted a burn barrel. I'm surprised they said anything to me. I was drenched in sweat, filthy from grinding the lid off the barrel, and was wearing my ratty, ripped up work clothes with a wet towel stuck under my cap, hanging down my back. I must've looked like a real freak. Or at least freakier than normal...

[lazy]

Poured a bunch of Frontier in the basket and lit 'er up. Been running rock-solid 225 at the lower grate for about 5 hours now. 2 of 3 intakes closed, valve just a smidge away from wide open. Adding the 6-inch tall exhaust into the bung made no difference.

It's only the first run, but I'm surprised it's only 225 with the valve almost open. The other drum will hold 225 with valve just less than 1/2 with other intakes closed.

Anybody using two grates on a drum have any insight to the temp diff between the two? Stabilized, with no load, top grate is 10 degrees higher than bottom. Any idea if this is what I can expect when the grates are loaded? I did notice that as the temp rose, the bottom would be warmer than the top, then it would reverse for awhile. When dropping the temp by closing the intake some, it the bottom temp would drop first, and would stabilize before the upper grate.

When stabilized, there is a 25 degree difference between the 4-inch long t-meter in the side and the Taylor digital probe placed in the center of the grate.

Biggest operational issue with the "design" of the rig is that I can't give the drum a swift kick to displace the ashes. May have to come up with another great idea to fix that...