do caculators work for cabinets?

[mofomatic]

I have an upcoming build. cook chamber is going to be 4ft tall, 4 wide and 2 deep. wooding burning. kinda a center feed cabinet.i built a 2x2x4 vertical cabinet that uses very little fuel and is super easy to run. so when work asked me to build a smoker for our summer bbq, I was thinking of doubling up that one. at the time I built the 2x2x4,i couldn't get this site's calc to work, so I used the feldon calculator. I just looked over the calc 2.0 and it doesn't work. probably the security setting here at work.

anyways, how much fire box do I need for something like this. because of how the 2x2x4 runs. I am guessing I can use a slightly smaller firebox. I would like to use a 2x2x2 fire box since that would make it easy to build. feldon calc says about 15k inches a 2ft cube is about 13k inches.

do any of these calcs work on a center feed cabinet? gut says this should work with a 2ft cube for a fire box. that puts it 6ft tall. I might have to play with the dimensions to bring that overall finished height down. gonna be mounted on skids and moved around with forklift.

mostly need this for cooking ribs, but it would also be used for other stuff.

last summer we wound up cooking for 230 people. and our equipment was maxed out for that amount of meat. some one built an old school std offset with cabinet on the far end, trailer mounted rig, and the 210gallons worth of smokers I brought in it was still rough.

should be a fun project if goes through, I think maybe a 95% chance it will get green lighted at this point. after last years bbq, could easily see 250 people.

ribs, tri tips, and chicken for 250... if for some reason this build gets cancelled. it can be done on what work has and what I can bring in. but its tight.

[Big T]

There's not a calculator that I know of for a vertical cooker.

[Dirtytires]

Interesting idea....sounds like MACK would fit the bill tho!

[mofomatic]

I’m thinking something like this would be easy to build. Easy to chop out of 3 4x8sheets. It would be built on the clock, can’t drag it out too much.

[Dirtytires]

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.

[mofomatic]

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.

[Dirtytires]

Sounds like you have a project then. Keep us posted.

[mofomatic]

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.

[Rodcrafter]

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!

[mofomatic]

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I got a pile of stuff waiting for me, hopefully I can get stared monday.

I found this perforated sheet for the cooker shelves. Thought it might be easier to clean than expanded metal.

[mofomatic]

[mofomatic]

[mofomatic]

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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.

[Big T]

Nice!

[mofomatic]

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

[mofomatic]

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.

[ajfoxy]

Looking good.

[Big T]

[mofomatic]

[mofomatic]

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.

[Big T]

[ajfoxy]

I like those shelves.

[mofomatic]

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.

[mofomatic]

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

[mofomatic]