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Hi. It's been a while since I posted anything, been sort of buried, but about three weeks ago I pulled into my driveway and having to see that same old faded Turco gas grill I converted into a charcoaler again just chapped my *** for the last dadgum time. I've been working on this sort of ...mission I guess you'd call it and for a long time I've been traveling or working, that's about it. Burn a steak on the weekends when I could make it back home with my wifey, then right back at it. I'm about 90% done with the project now, so things are relaxing a bit, and I just decided that old grill needed to go. Thought I'd take the opportunity to finally do what I've wanted since I was a kid growing up in the south and make one out of a drum. Easy, fast, straightforward, cheap; buy a drum, cut it in half, tack on some hinges, legs and a handle, throw in a bag of charcoal and ready for dinner by 6. What could be easier? Found a drum on Craigslist within ten minutes for $10, it actually cost me more than that in gas to go get it.So after getting it home and it sitting in the spot the old gasser used to occupy for about a week til I could get to it, I went out ready to bang it out, and immediately realized the doggone thing was way too huge. I mean, it's just my wife and I most of the time, and even when we include the neighbors and have friends over, 700+" of cooking surface is way more than I need, not to mention the wood/lump charcoal required to maintain 13,000 cubic inches, so I cut one third of the length (height) out of it, welded it back together, and basically started from there. I was sort of surprised to realize that if you take out about 1/3 of the height, about 11"+-, you get a near-perfect square grill. 22"x22". You still have a whopping 484" of surface and over 8,000 cubes of smokey heaven.Ok, so I don't know what happened next. As I said, I was just planning to cut, zap, slap, and burn. Thee weeks later, I just finished.Before I go much further, I have to say this became the most extensive welding project I've ever undertaken. I think there was just about every type of joint conceivable, many different gauges, alloys, and shapes of steel from sheet to galvanized* tube to angle-iron and zinc-plated nuts, and by the time I was finished I had hours of welding time under my belt. But not all the welds are pretty. Deep, mostly, decent quality, but if you're looking for consistent stacks of dimes, they're there but only in a few ideal places.I'm stalling... I know you guys really know what you're doing, so this is a little intimidating. And please, I know how a lot of you guys feel about HF anything, but mine is a Christmas gift 90 amp from my wife, and I love it. I'll definitely upgrade at some point, but yeah, it's not a Miller or LE. I just couldn't justify sophisticated professional equipment at my skill level. But, I will have to say that my skills did get much better, faster, cleaner, and I became a safety fanatic after visiting Airgas for wire and other consumables and getting lots of literature. *Oh, and speaking of safety, I researched like crazy before starting this project and before welding any galv, or anything at all actually, I got some serious breathing protection, only worked outside and with a fan and only used treated metals for the legs. Nothing anywhere near the food area or where it would heat up. And it was cheap! I only made three purchases for material for the project; one expanded steel panel for the lower grilling surface, one perforated for the upper rack, and the wheels. I actually could have used the wheels from the old grill, but I converted that into a welding cart in the middle of the process, so the wheels were taken. Plus, I just liked these. They look cool. Everything else was from scrap steel I had stored in various places.The hinges? '93 Honda Civic trunk lid. Seriously. Stripped and then burnt off all traces of coating.I haven't painted anything yet, but I wanted you guys to see it in raw form. I'm going to try to post the pics top down from the earliest stages (I didn't think to take pictures until I had already cut and welded a little) to the most current version. I can't exactly say I'm "finished", but I have cleaned it and cooked a couple of times for test runs, and I have to tell you, it has the most predictable, stable, consistent operation of any grill I've ever owned. I cooked 15 pieces of chicken (to me, THE most difficult thing to cook well with a smoker but especially difficult with a grill.), five with a sugary BBQ sauce (prone to burning to ash in like ten seconds...) and the last ten with two different rubs I've been working on. One with sesame seeds. Nothing, nothing burnt. It cooked at an even 250 degrees with a tiny bit of venting for four hours. Finally, I have a cooker I freakin really love, dudes. And although this project WAS A SERIOUS PAIN IN THE ***, lol, I really, really enjoyed the process and learned a freakin lot.Ok. Here are da pics. Attached ImagesI never finish anyth
Reply:Thought I'd add a note; I designed it "vertically" in that there's no firebox, and it functions the same as if you were to keep the contents of a typical barrel smoker stationary, shorten the drum, and rotate it 90°.Here's a better explanation of the pics, also. Still getting the hang of the way the forum functions.This is how it started. I thought I was done, but I wasn't happy with the legs. And it was leaky.So I added some supports and height. Sort of have a 'lunar lander" thing going...Dude! It just hit me. We have an old Honda that we're scrapping, so I pulled the trunk hatch hinges... (Just testing for allignment in this shot.)Trimmed off the support-strut mounts, and excess metal:You should see how it lifts. It lifts vertically, then the bottom edge of the lid rotates slightly forward. Cool factor: check.The pictures don't do it justice, especially since I haven't painted it yet, but that's next.That's it! I'll post again when I paint it.If you see anything I missed or could improve upon, please feel free. I'd love the input.Last edited by Jeep; 08-23-2011 at 01:40 PM.I never finish anyth
Reply:Huh? A functional piece of equipment, made from nuthin' with a cheapo welder! Who woulda thunk it? See, little things like this is what turns into expensive welders and projects. Once you're hooked there's no turning back. Great project, thanks for sharing.Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize we cannot eat money. -Cree Indian ProverbSA 200 LincolnVictor Torches
Reply:Originally Posted by gizzardgutzHuh? A functional piece of equipment, made from nuthin' with a cheapo welder! Who woulda thunk it? See, little things like this is what turns into expensive welders and projects. Once you're hooked there's no turning back. Great project, thanks for sharing.
Reply:Thanks. Yep, I can see this getting really serious. I have a really hard time throwing anything away anyway. My wife is always saying stuff like "Do we really need to store half of a jeep exhaust system?" and I'm all like "Duh, yeah. ...I'm not sure why yet exactly, but we do." When I made this, I just pointed to the tailpipe and said "SEE??" She just rolled her eyes. But she's cool with it. Decent broad. Flying back to FL tomorrow to spend the weekend with my son (almost 18) and we're gonna go pick him up a welder, and we're gonna get him started too. (As with our guns, the first day will be entirely about safety training, i.e., electrocution hazard, explosive dangers, ventilation, safety gear, etc.) and he'll only have access to it when I'm there for a few months.) It's kind of funny- my ex has him in this fru-fru private school where the football team is basically a soccer team with helmets and everybody drives the same cars, but all he wants to do is hang out with his old man and weld old ubolts together, shoot holes in beer-cans and bass fish. Anyway. So yeah. Smoked a rack of spareribs yesterday. Holy dadgum. Worth the four hour wait.I never finish anyth |
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发表于 2021-8-31 23:34:32