Can’t argue with that but remember you get out of it what you put in.
Maybe a couple of guys would donate a Saturday’s time and the company picks up a pizza lunch or two. In the end, your company would have a great smoker that could be used for years to come. Or maybe you do one day a month with a couple guys. Probably wouldn’t be ready till next year but what a great team building project. Even guys/gals who can’t weld could get on a grinder or hunt down hinges and parts.
As far as this year, ribs take up a huge amount of real estate on a smoker. To feed that many with what you have, switch to pork butts and brisket. Just my humble 2 cents.
This is a union shop, so donating time doesn’t really work. Anywhere else I’ve been that might be ok. The people up in the office are dictating what we cook, I can only attempt to offer advise. We did brisket last year and time wise, it was rough, this year we’re doing tri tips.
I really think this design I have in mind would work pretty good. I built a 2x2x4 vertical for a friend that works really well, the idea is to build a double wide version of that.
The bottom Of the cabinet would be 2’x4’, equally space 2 fb openings, grease damns around the openings, removable baffle plate(1/2x 20”x44” or so?) for cleaning of cook chamber. I don’t think simple and easy to build has to take away from performance.
Well, this project got greenlighted. Ordered my material today. Have access to a brake and shear. So I need to work out my bends to get the most out of that. Should be able to save some time on welding.
Yes a brake and shear would be nice. I’m glad to have forklifts and opportunity to work on my stuff on the clock. I guess we won’t be buying a shear and brake since all the fabrication is really just on my hobbies.
Making memories!
Current Smokers: Backyard RF Offset and Hybrid RF Offset trailer rig with Cowboy cooker and fish fryer, always room for more........
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Got the sides of the cook chamber done. Adding the rails for seven shelve was pretty tedious. Baffle plate is 1/2”. Hopefully the fire box parts are cut out, should be bent by the time I get to work.
The 2 side pieces warped when I was welding all the angle iron pieces for the racks, nothing a 100 ton press couldn’t fix. I was surprised by how much I had to push it the other way to get it mostly flat again
Fire box is coming along, need to cut some inlet and outlet holes, and install the door.
Got the cook chamber tacked together. There was a little warpage left on the side pieces after the press, so I stuck some vice grips on the angle iron pieces and pulled it into shape with a ratchet strap.
Learning generally boils down to "Repetition or the avoidance of pain", some people learn by doing, some by watching and some just have to pee on the electric fence.
Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right. Henry Ford
Coming together. Fire box installed, inlets cut out and sliding dampers made. Went with an inlet on each side, opposite corners. Overall, fb is 78% the size needed for a std rf. Last time I built a vertical cabinet, the fire box could have been a lot smaller. So 78% is a educated guess here.
Shelves came out nice. 1/8 perforated sheet, bent a lip on the rear and the front. Ridgid enough on its own, don’t need to make any frame work.
Things to do....fb to cc openings. Install cc and fb doors. Assemble legs and base(pieces cut), drip rail around bottom of bp.
Learning generally boils down to "Repetition or the avoidance of pain", some people learn by doing, some by watching and some just have to pee on the electric fence.
Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right. Henry Ford
Those shelves are great. Our sheet metal guy figured that would be better than me welding up angle iron frames. Probably saved me a day of work. Wich is good, cause Thursday this mofo needs to be cooking a pile of ribs.
I took a day off to cook this pig. Gonna have to make up for lost time next week. This is a small farm local pig, looks and smells better than the industrial commodity pigs from the restaurant supply store