1 + 1 = ??? --THE UDS IS DONE--

[MattS]

What does an old 22.5" grill plus a burning barrel equal? hmmm, we'll see

[Frank_Cox]

UDS

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[Tom_Heath]

Nice, Very Nice.........

In my opinion, a drum takes an average cook to the next level....and then some.

[MattS]

Hot out or not, I was getting this done done (kinda) today. I had the barrel burned out a week now so the hard part of cleaning it out begins. The burn broke up the red inner liner but it wasn't coming off very easy. Then I remember someone mention going thru the same thing and used Comet cleaner and it came out. Well what the heck, I tried it. OH HECK NO, that red junk came right off with little scrubbing. Saved me tons of time. Very excited no to get this thing done.

All Clean now



Now its time to start putting the vents in. I went ahead and used PVC to save a few bucks and keep the weight down. Still welded iron pipe to the drum but then went to PVC. Went with two adjustable vents and two capped vents


Since the PVC isn't as strong as pipe, I had to mount it somehow. I drilled and ground out two big eye bolts to fit the PVC tightly.


Since I have an old grill to use for parts on this, I was able to put in two racks. I used some angle brackets from the hardware store and welded them in place.


Using a magnet made it real easy to weld these. Just measured out the magnet and bracket and it was there solid to slap some weld on it.


Now its time to start on the lid. The grill top I had was two small to even try to bend the flange out. After running thru many different ideas, I finally decided to take the barrel lid and the old grill lid and combine them. I cut the lip off the grill lid and it fit right inside the barrel lid. Put a bunch of spot welds on it and then cut out the inside of the barrel lid. Now its a perfect fit just like from the factory.





That pretty much wraps it up. I put a coat of black grill paint on it, added a shelf, some handles and now its smoking away getting seasoned. I still want to put a better paint job on it and the lid needs sealed up a bit, but its usable now.

[rlmax02]

looks good to go..i really dig the way you fixed the lid up. good thinking. how many frosted malt beverages did you go through during that thought process.

[Frank_Cox]

Lookin good! so the comet thing REALLY does work then?

[Tom_Heath]

Awesome deal on the comet. The lid fix is exactly what I did when I used the bottom of the weber for one of my lids. On my net one I will tack it in several spots and then use silicone, vs a full weld.

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[MattS]

Ya Tom, I didn't do a full weld on it and planned on using silicone to seal it up. Still need to get some silicone for it. I am also going to get some fireplace gasket and run inside the lip where it sits on the drum.

This is the first UDS I have used and I am amazed how well these things maintain heat. When I fired it up the other night I had just enough charcoal to fill up a chimney starter and just that amount held heat for hours. I am loving this already. Will get some meat on it this weekend when I load the big rig with dozens of buts.

[Tom_Heath]

Give it a try before ya spend the money onthe rope gasket man, Once mine seasoned it sealed up really nice, almost to the point that its tough to get the lid off sometimes.

[MattS]

Putting the caulking on the inside of the joint of the two lids will help a lot. That is the main issue I have. The lid fits tight now but there are a couple dings in the ring on the barrel that I really don't want to try and pound out. I will caulk it up first and see how things are. I mainly need to seal it up for when I leave it out in the rain.

[Tom_Heath]

I hear ya on keeping the rain out. The only thing I have come up with so far is putting a trash bag over mine. The top vents let alot of rain in.