Sheffsmoker's extreme budget mini smoker

[dacolson]

Looks sharp. I like the 6mm rod vent guides. Keep the updates coming

[SheffSmoker]

Cheers. Again, far from perfect but as usual working with what useless tat I have lying around.

[SheffSmoker]

Slow couple of days again due to pants weather.

Got the CC throat cut out, welded the CC blanking plug where the gas tap used to live, and today I've got the FB welded to the CC. Bit of a mission that was, due to the daft angle produced by two dome ends meeting the top weld was a bit iffy to say the least, and struggled to get anything in the gap to clean it up after so it was just chipping hammer and wire brush time. This is where I REALLY need a mig. Ironically, the underside which you will never see was probably my best welding yet!

Rain stopped play again pretty fast so no pictures today unfortunately.

CC door to cut out next, CC legs to make and still need to find a suitable bit of tubing for a chimney stack. Thinking of a bit of scaffold tube as normally there's loads knocking around but can I hell find any right now! Failing that will call into the local car mechanic shop and see if they have any exhaust tubing in the scrap bin I can swap for some beers.

[dacolson]

Fab up a square tube stack?

[SheffSmoker]

Fab up a square tube stack?

I would, but don't have any steel stock to make one with. There's a place not too far away that sells scaffold poles for 60p (around 75 cents) a foot, so could have a long enough stack and two decent legs for a few dollars.

[SheffSmoker]

Got another few bits done today.

First the CC door cut. Tape lines laid down, idiot arrows are to remind me which side of the tape to cut.

Cut out with a 4.5" cutting disc. Reasonably clean inside, bit of surface rust cleaned off with a drill powered wire brush and vacuumed out.

FB-CC throat - bit of a weird shape due to the cylinders, but it's within 1/2" of the required dimensions. Will open it out a bit if needed, but left a useful 1/2" lip at the bottom as a make do grease dam.

Let's make some more metal filings cutting and cleaning some door seals out of the old gas bottle again.

Door test fit. Left the small gap bottom right on purpose so I can place a small wedge in there when it comes to putting the hinges on, then weld an extra piece in. Annoyingly as careful as I was welding the door seals on it's sprung on the left side a couple of mm. Will see how it fares once smoking but may just add another inner lip welded on to make a kind of labyrinth seal.

Made some legs out of some old drain rod I found and a couple of bits of old tank cylinder for feet.

Stood on it's own for the first time! Yes, I know it's low down but it doesn't need to be portable and the wife can put fresh wood on the fire. I also know the patio needs weeding before anyone says...

Not much to you fellas, but was over the moon with this weld considering what I have to work with!

Also scored some free scaffold tubing from a family member who just happened to mention he had some he couldn't get rid of.

[Big T]

Nice work!

[hogaboomer]

Nothing wrong with that weld. Some of the other ones look a little questionable, though.

[mp4]

You are a true craftsman!

[SheffSmoker]

Nothing wrong with that weld. Some of the other ones look a little questionable, though.

I don't disagree, this ancient stick welder has a mind of it's own. Same steel, same cleanliness, same angle, same size of arc and one looks like the nice one above and then next just blows chunks. Hopefully the new mig will be ordered before the end of next month.

[SheffSmoker]

You are a true craftsman!

That's pushing it a bit! I'd say more bodging with a bit of artistic licence.

[Dirtytires]

Don’t beat yourself up with the door springing a bit. Most of the time it’s not your fault. A good percentage of tanks will release tension unevenly as they are cut and will spring a little. This is easily fixed with a chain and bottle jack tho.

[SheffSmoker]

Don’t beat yourself up with the door springing a bit. Most of the time it’s not your fault. A good percentage of tanks will release tension unevenly as they are cut and will spring a little. This is easily fixed with a chain and bottle jack tho.

Cheers pal, need to grab some chain next time I'm at the hardware store.

[SheffSmoker]

The weather gods haven't been kind to me again today so only got an hour or so on it.

Bonus was the missus throwing out the old dish drainer as she'd bought a new one... "Is that going in the bin?" "Yes." "No it isn't give it here!"

Took advantage of it and deconstructed it for the large wire to make some extra grids for the log rack.

Before (ish):

After:

[hogaboomer]

haha

[dacolson]

Love it. You’re probably paying more for electric and filler rods than steel! Keep it up.

[SheffSmoker]

Got a good day on it yesterday, we are almost there!

Cut the end flange off to get the stack hole cut.

Stack took quite a bit of fettling (do our USA brethren know or use that word?) to make it sit nice and flush, curves in two planes are a headache. Door also welded on using some 50 cent hinges from the local hardware store. Welded each of them onto another small section of bottle to raise them up a bit so they sit more level on the CC.

Made a CC handle from some old metal conduit, same material as the legs.

Waste not want not... Made a door stop from the section of scaffold tube I cut off.

It's a good job I had two 6 foot lengths of scaffold tube, ran the numbers again as it's a 1.6" internal diameter... Stack length 48" There's no way I could manage holding a four foot length of scaffold perfectly vertical and steady, and weld it - so chopped it down to around 10", welded that up then once finished just welded the rest of the stack on.

Was getting dark but couldn't resist a quick fire and clean out burn. She breathes!

Just the cook racks to finish now.

[dacolson]

Well done Sheff!! And no, we don’t do any “fettling” over here. A bit of fiddling around, but definitely no fettling. What would the neighbors say?
Again, good looking bit of work there. How’s the draft on that long skinny stack? I see smoke coming out. Did it hold temp?

[SheffSmoker]

Cheers Dacolson. Fettling is "Fine adjustment, finish, clean" - or the part of the UK I'm from it also means make or repair.

It drafts really well, nice long stream of smoke out of the stack. I also couldn't resist chucking something in it last night just to see what happened, so balanced a cook rack on top of an empty soup can and threw half a bulb of garlic on, and left it for 2 hours. It was a pure wood fire just using up some pine I had (not ideal for smoking I know) and this was the result:

Creamy smooth inside and a nice hint of smoke, so looking forward to properly testing it later.

No idea on temps as yet as didn't have time to fit the temp gauge yesterday, getting done in a bit and another test fire with charcoal and oak.

[dacolson]

Stay clear of that pine though. Bad for your smoker too. Creosote is bad stuff for food.

[SheffSmoker]

Stay clear of that pine though. Bad for your smoker too. Creosote is bad stuff for food.

Aye cheers - it's getting a wash out today before the proper stuff.

[Dirtytires]

Absolutely nothing wrong with a long chimney. If it ever gets to the point of being too long, you can always add two chimneys of half the length and mount them side by side.

Did I hear you say the chimney pipe was galvanized? Most of us don’t like to use galvanized material in a smoker.

[SheffSmoker]

Absolutely nothing wrong with a long chimney. If it ever gets to the point of being too long, you can always add two chimneys of half the length and mount them side by side.

Did I hear you say the chimney pipe was galvanized? Most of us don’t like to use galvanized material in a smoker.

Yes it is galvanised, but I've run a wire brush down the inside chimney sweep style, and as it's the flue I didn't think it would matter that much. It's had two mega hot burnouts as well.

Next one I'll use some mild steel exhaust tubing.

[SheffSmoker]

So it's all cleaned out thanks to the stepson and some slave labour

Added some internal door seals today but they were a nightmare to weld inside, had to resort to borrowing the wife's handbag mirror to see what I was doing. Wish I hadn't bothered as it's twisted the door even more so now need sealant to make it smoke tight. Bah.

Fitted the temp gauge I robbed from our gas BBQ.

That was doing a clean burn with charcoal only and the FB vent wide open. Once it settled down I was over the moon to see this.

That's with a settled bed of charcoal and one chunk of oak on. Nothing to hand to smoke and it's getting late so I've just chucked on some already cooked chicken to see what happens.

[SheffSmoker]

After an hour.