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Is the chute square? Have you had any problems with it, jamming etc?

Did those plates solve your temp/smoke issues? I'm having similar issues, wood burns too fast, leaves no coal bed behind, upper racks are way hotter and also I'm lacking a lot of smoke flavour. Doesn't really matter what kind of wood I use, seems like everything just burns so fast they leave no flav...

Hi, I think my next build is going to be a Backwoods clone, at least as big as the Professional model. I was wondering about the sizing, most of Backwoods are pretty square... Do you think I'd run into uneven temp issues if I made my clone's grates 35" x 25" or something like that? To me it seems th...

Great looking build you got there :) The funny thing is, my FB end is always cooler than the other end. I tried to close my BP gap some with a temporary square plate, that didn't really help too much. Did you try yours with squared plate or did you went with curved straight away? Also, I don't think...

Okay, I'll close mine a little bit. Currently my gap is actually a bit bigger than the throat at 132 sq inches vs throat at 128 sq inches. Not by design, though Maybe I'll close it 50% and see if there is change.

Which side you have your firebox on? Left or right?

Did you close up the baffle plate gap? I did mine and my temps settled in quite a bit. The last cook I was within 5-10° left to right and center. < Not yet, that's what's I'm doing next. Any idea how big your gap is percentage wise from the FB throat size? Have you measured temp difference from bot...

Okay, been doing some testing, thinking and measuring... Smoker seems to run very consistent as previously, however I used more probes and discovered that from left to right the temp difference is only around 30F, which in my books is fine. After all the CC is 6.5 feet long. But the big problem is f...

I'm having similar problems with the coal bed, splits don't leave enough coal behind to keep it going... On another note, how do you get more smoke flavour with stick burner? Burn greener wood? I've done now around 5 cooks on my stick burner and the smoke flavour is there, but I would like a little ...

I see a lot of black soot at the ends of the doors. Is that from the burnout or is that coming from the cooks you have done? From both I guess. The doors leak so much that smoke rolling out of the sides taints the tank black. I've never had any creosote taste from any of the cooks and the smoke is ...

I know fire management very well. I've done three cooks on it already, all hot and fast at 275-325F range. It takes about an hour to hour and half to get the BP and the whole chamber to heat up nicely. But still there is a big temp difference that can't be corrected. Never had anything other come ou...

Oh heck yeah, it cooks! It's been a long project, still some things left to do but it cooks. rf.jpg However, there's a major temp problem, it's hotter on the far end away from the firebox! And I can't get that end to settle with the firebox end, even if I dip it a lot lower than my firebox. The diff...

Ok, it's been a while once again ;-) Progress has been made, got the fb welded to the cook chamber, rf plates (3 sections) are almost welded and the drain is in. Will post some pics after tomorrow's progress. As I've been building this thing my catering business has taken off, so now it almost feels...

I think I'll just weld it from outside as well as I can. I can't really fit inside the FB so welding from inside would be a major pain...

Is it a good idea to grind down the first pass before welding subsequent passes? I think grinding it a little bit down to uniform thickness is usually done...?

Finally got back at it after a long hiatus and managed to get some work done in last few weeks. I've had my fair share of problems with the tank, it had many big holes to patch and at some point the whole tank popped outwards in the center. Got an awesome tip on how to get it back to correct radius:...

They are pretty bad at the worst spots, somewhere in the region of 1/2". I wish I had oxyacetylene so I could heat it up and shape the plate for better fit. Big hammer did something to the gap, but not enough to make it fit properly... Here are some pics of the worst gap: http://t.imgbox.com/877GVCV...

Hmm. I have my FB tacked up, having a bit of difficulty with the stick welding. I have a 3-phase 180A mig welder, any change it could have enough power for the outside corner root pass? Due to some fit-up issues, well actually because the steel plate was warped, I have some gaps. That should help wi...

Hi, I just had a thought, could one use Ikea stainless steel kitchen cabinet handles for smoker handles? They look pretty slick and cost a dime. Although the gap is kinda small, probably couldn't open it with thick gloves. Also, I'm wondering how much heat would travel to the handle... And they don'...

Thanks, That's exactly how I imagined patching the hole, although I was delusional enough thinking I didn't need to get it rolled elsewhere. Now that I've tried to bend that patch myself, I'm sure I need someone with a roll :D The problem is with the heat, it's really hard to get it hot enough with ...

Finally got something done,

Cut all the FB plates with the plasma cnc, it worked pretty well



Today I'm going to cut out everything that doesn't belong to the tank, and then start welding the FB.

No change at all since it's mandatory to have a trailer registered in this country. And it's way easier to modify existing one, it's almost impossible to build one and get it to comply with every EC regulation etc etc :( Frank that's a good idea, although I'm not that worried about the plywood (it's...

Hi, My build is slowly getting somewhere, and I need to start thinking about marrying my smoker and trailer soon... The smoker is around 160 gallons, around 7' long and the completed build will weight maximum of 800 pounds with the firebox. The trailer is quite small and it has solid plywood floor. ...

Ok, have to get me some 1/8" and have a go at the firebox.

I can always ground it down if it looks fugly, as long as it's structurally sound, right?

Thanks, Been practising with 7018-1, it's a little bit harder than 6013 but not so bad. Restarting is quite hard, even with filing the rod before restarts, rod keeps sticking a lot. But that might be because I'm using AC. Would you recommend leaving a small gap on the corner joints for better penetr...

Are you sure about those 120-135 Amps? My package on 3/32 7018-1 says 80-110A (but it's 7018-1 and I'm using AC). I did some test beads, and it seemed to run best at around 100A with my machine. I tried it with around 120-125A, but the stick was glowing red after welding. 120-135A would be right on ...

Thanks,

I'll make it all the way to the end then and leave an air gap between the FB