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Good looking smoker, well done! Just eyeballing it it looks similar in dimensions to mine, and your throat looks to have around twice the CSA of mine. It would be easy to either tack a plate at the top bringing it down some, or making the grease dam at the bottom taller tacking a plate in there. I ...

I suppose I was looking for a more experienced and complex answer as to why I should fix something that isn't broke. I will continue to think out of the box and as any Patriot would, "for myself"! I've always been told that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I'm going to have to agree with you Big T....

I have to wonder why guys constantly run the numbers and then ask if they are important. As always, you are free to build whatever you want but if I were going to spend a 100 hours and $2000 on a pit I would want it to work. Well, because the design works after one fix, elevating the fire grate tha...

With so much extra air in the FB, you’ll have a harder time keeping control of your fire and coals. Too much wood and it gets hot in a hurry. Too little and you’ll burn through your coal bed super fast. Close the vents down too much and you smolder. Just harder to set it and forget it. That's good ...

I suppose my biggest questions are about the throat and firebox sizes based on the above info. Also see the screenshot of the end view of the cook chamber. What are the biggest issues and drawbacks to my firebox being so much bigger than the calculator calls for? I'm thinking about making it a rever...

First of all, the Pit Calculator is amazing. I just wish the calculator was more Octagon friendly. I found a good calculator to calculate the volume in gallons but then for the firebox I had to manipulate the numbers to match the gallon volume. This thread may or may not get long so I'm going to put...

Cool, I'll have to check it out again. Free versions of software are not always easily visible as the pay versions :). I hope it will do calculations, that's one thing I've gotten spoiled on, clicking on a shape I draw and then in the view menu, viewing the square inches of area it takes up. Makes c...

B oiled L inseed O il :beer: So why Linseed oil instead of high temp paint? Appearance? Ease of maintenance? Or other reasons? And where do you buy it, hardware or grocery? Is it boiled before purchase? What if you can't find it boiled? How does it differ for you to make the choice of boiled? I nev...

Brewmaster wrote: ↑

May 6th, 2021, 6:09 pm

Looks like you're building a really nice beast! Personally, I'm a fan of this style round vent.....

firebox vent 1.jpg

That's a pretty door too. I like both of them. Decisions decisions.... Thanks for the input and photos. I'd be interested in seeing more if you have them. Appreciate it!

It definitely gets a little more air under the fire basket. As far as ash and coals go, a fire basket does a pretty good job of keeping anything from rolling around and the pieces that falls thru can be stopped by a small lip on the firebox floor. In many cases, an ash pan does this job nicely. Goo...

I always like my vents lower...why not rotate your butterfly so the holes are left/right instead of top/bottom? Ok, back to the grind, literally! I tried what you said, a 90 degree rotation to horizontal. However that didn't work out as good as we thought. both openings were at grate level and not ...

Sketchup can be run in your browser. It's easy to learn and pretty intuitive. Librecad is simple 2d cad that's pretty easy that runs in linux. It works but I don't think it's under development anymore. You could check out freecad but it's relatively complicated. Thanks for the ideas. Actually I've ...

Give me a few days to draw that in Vizio (the only reason I have a Microsoft VM). I've found if I can draw it everything comes out better. I never made mechanical drawings with it before the first grill. Takes the guess work out and parts magically fit. Maybe there is another easier and better drawi...

I'm trying to determine if this firebox door vent height and fire grate height from floor is a good enough setup to work. This is the second one, the first one I had to come back and raise the fire grate as it was only an inch off the floor of the firebox. I see offsets and reverse flows with firebo...

Finished the refurb for the buyer on my first pit build. The wheels are not my style but I can’t help be pleased with how it all turned out. Test burn today and it heats up great. Better than the original fb design. The new FB door stayed true as well. A hit with the surface prep wheel on a couple ...

I've made up my mind for my flanges. I used to (welding part sub and duel shield) build the Wireline Spools for down hole mud-logging and recovery tool trucks at NL McCullough before the 83 bust. Somebody above in another post said match the sizes of material to prevent the warp. Well I was going to...

Thank you three for your responses and compliments, I worked pretty hard on it. So offset normally doesn't get a shadow plate. Thanks for explaining. This is the view from the firebox looking into the cook chamber. So are you saying I should put something on the inside of the cook chamber as sort of...

Hello folks. I joined this forum with intention to make it better... isn't that what we always think when we get done with a job.. least that's what my Dad taught me I ought to think. Anyway this was my first smoker and I used the calculator here building it, which I think helped make it as good as ...

Well, I don't think I ever posted here but was going to when I built this 18" x 38" inside dimension Octagon Smoker for a friend. He had one problem with it we sorted out I could probably explain why with photos. This is the first one I've ever built. But you can see not the first time I've built so...