Hello from a New Member

Bart · Post by **Bart** » December 17th, 2013, 7:19 pm

Hi
In the process of building my first BBQ and was doing research on the good old web when I came across this forum.

I’ve been a student of Low and Slow Que for about 18 years now. Originally started out with a cheap water pan vertical cooker from Cabellas. Spent several years tweeking that cooker when I finally stepped up and invested in an inexpensive offset. Learned a lot messing with this offset. Modifying it to get a more stable temp and started to learn and appreciate what it takes to build a quality cooker. A few years back I purchased an Egg and loved it. A year later I bought a second egg and look forward to cooking on them every weekend. But I love working with metal and nothing more fun than to tweek and modify a metal cooker. Been wanting to build my own pit and even went as far as putting together some CAD drawings a few years back. While I love my eggs, but they don’t take the place of a big offset cooker. The time has come to do my first build, I’m calling “Project FrankinQue”. Just picked up a 70 gallon compressor tank built in 1946, it weighs over 440 pounds and has ¼ walls. This weekend I’ll be making my first cut into the tank.

Another project that is almost complete is a cart I’m making to carry both my XL Eggs. The cart is assembled and painted. Just need to finish the 3 fold out counters and the large storage draw. Looking forward to hauling my Eggs to a couple competitions in 2014.

In other areas of BBQ I Chair the KCBS sanctioned Silicon Valley BBQ Championships. Myself and 2 of my fellow Rotarians held this competition for the first time in June, 2012. In the first year we had 39 teams and 16 backyard teams. Estimated public attendance at the event was around 20K. The City Council of Santa Clara was so impressed with the event that they invited us to have it in the cities Central Park. Second year we had 56 teams and 14 backyard and roughly the same attendance. We have a 5 year contract with the city of Santa Clara with two 5 year options. We have a great team of Rotarians working on this event and we hope to grow it into one of the largest on the West Coast.

I’ll be starting a thread soon on the FrankinQue. Being this is my first build I’ll probably have a lot of question and look forward to your feedback as I feel my way through this build.

Looking forward to getting to know all of you more.

Frank
Santa Clara, Ca.

dwwantasmoker · Post by **dwwantasmoker** » December 17th, 2013, 8:18 pm

The cart

Looking forward to seeing the build

Post by **Big T** » December 17th, 2013, 8:22 pm

It's great to hear that you've started a competition and that it's doing so well. I'm looking forward to watching your build.

Clover Ridge Smokers · Post by **Clover Ridge Smokers** » December 17th, 2013, 8:57 pm

Welcome to the addiction. I had to do a double take on the name of your new cooker. There is a product out there called FrankenQube from Iron Man Cookers and I was thinking you were stealing the name. Iron Man is a sister company of SmokerBuilder.

Gizmo · Post by **Gizmo** » December 17th, 2013, 10:14 pm

Welcome Bart!

Smokeone · Post by **Smokeone** » December 17th, 2013, 10:31 pm

Post by **Rodcrafter** » December 18th, 2013, 6:41 am

Bart, nice work on the cart! I bet your going to do a nice job on the cooker too.
So is it going to be an RF or just an offset?

Look forward to seeing you around. Merry Christmas

The Czar · Post by **The Czar** » December 18th, 2013, 6:54 am

Welcome aboard!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Bart · Post by **Bart** » December 18th, 2013, 10:06 am

Clover Ridge Smokers wrote:Welcome to the addiction. I had to do a double take on the name of your new cooker. There is a product out there called FrankenQube from Iron Man Cookers and I was thinking you were stealing the name. Iron Man is a sister company of SmokerBuilder.

No theft here, I had no idea Iron Man Cookers had a product with a similar name. I just thought it was a good nickname for a cooker that I hope to build using mostly scrape iron.

Bart · Post by **Bart** » December 18th, 2013, 10:09 am

Rodcrafter wrote:

Bart, nice work on the cart! I bet your going to do a nice job on the cooker too.
So is it going to be an RF or just an offset?

Look forward to seeing you around. Merry Christmas

going to be an RF. Never cooked on a RF and looking forward to trying it out. I did take one of my offset a few years back and laid bricks and 3/16 plate across the bottom getting a similar affect but it wasn't a true RF cooker.

Rev.Mike · Post by **Rev.Mike** » December 18th, 2013, 12:13 pm

SmokerBuilder.com