80 Gallon Bid for Excellence

huntfishgrill · Post by **huntfishgrill** » October 13th, 2013, 8:08 pm

Grinded, sanded and grinded some more today. Taking this thing to get blasted tomorrow. We will roll this thing in the booth this week and put some paint on it. Any suggestions for paint other than the Rustoleum quart I bought at Lowes?

Puff · Post by **Puff** » October 13th, 2013, 8:12 pm

I have read as much as I can trying to find out about high temp paints and it SEEMS that the Rustoleum is the current one to use. By the way, I bought that same quart of satin black today at Lowe's. I was glad to see they had it and I didn't need to start the proverbial "wild goose chase"

Clover Ridge Smokers · Post by **Clover Ridge Smokers** » October 18th, 2013, 6:47 am

Holy crap huntfishgrill, I just noticed you avatar. At first glance i thought it was a drawing of something else......

Puff · Post by **Puff** » October 18th, 2013, 9:01 pm

I just had to roll the screen back and look...made me laugh

huntfishgrill · Post by **huntfishgrill** » October 23rd, 2013, 7:26 pm

Clover Ridge Smokers wrote:Holy crap huntfishgrill, I just noticed you avatar. At first glance i thought it was a drawing of something else......

Now that is funny! that was an initial sketch i sent from my phone to my buddy explaining what i meant by center feed. It's actually pretty dang close to that sketch. the smoker sketch, not the pecker sketch!

Clover Ridge Smokers · Post by **Clover Ridge Smokers** » October 23rd, 2013, 7:28 pm

huntfishgrill · Post by **huntfishgrill** » October 23rd, 2013, 7:30 pm

I'm in a holding pattern for a few weeks with busy-at-work syndrome. Interestingly enough my buddy at the powder coating place has started hollering at me about some silicone based high heat powder coating that he swears will hold up. He says his dad's smoker has it on it for a couple years now with only a few chips around the hinges. He's going to quote me once I get it over there. Hopefully I will get the poor man's discount and that coating will be bad to the bone!

jaybird302 · Post by **jaybird302** » October 23rd, 2013, 11:14 pm

huntfishgrill wrote:I'm in a holding pattern for a few weeks with busy-at-work syndrome. Interestingly enough my buddy at the powder coating place has started hollering at me about some silicone based high heat powder coating that he swears will hold up. He says his dad's smoker has it on it for a couple years now with only a few chips around the hinges. He's going to quote me once I get it over there. Hopefully I will get the poor man's discount and that coating will be bad to the bone!

So, I have a question about the high temp powder coating. Maybe you know already, or might be worth asking your buddy. So, standard powder is cooked at a certain temp, let's say 400*f for discussions sake(no idea what the actual temp should be), what temp would it take to bake out the high temp stuff? This might limit who would have the equipment needed to do such a thing. Just a thought. Jay

Gizmo · Post by **Gizmo** » October 24th, 2013, 5:18 am

From what I've learned regular powder coat is a 400F product. The high temp is rated at 800F and is available in any color you want as long as it's dull black.

huntfishgrill · Post by **huntfishgrill** » October 29th, 2013, 8:22 pm

Yea i don't really know. I will find out more soon. I think it was 1200 degree stuff or so and is silicone based. the bake simply causes it to lock on and chemically change somehow, but i really don't know the technical details. even if i don't end up doing it i will definitely find out for the details for the home team's benefit!

jaybird302 · Post by **jaybird302** » October 29th, 2013, 8:51 pm

huntfishgrill wrote:Yea i don't really know. I will find out more soon. I think it was 1200 degree stuff or so and is silicone based. the bake simply causes it to lock on and chemically change somehow, but i really don't know the technical details. even if i don't end up doing it i will definitely find out for the details for the home team's benefit!

Good man!

huntfishgrill · Post by **huntfishgrill** » December 30th, 2013, 8:45 pm

OK so I'm back off the bench now that Santa has come and gone. put in a solid 9 hours Saturday evening to button this thing up. First up was to add the heat handle for the FB.

: Nothing fancy here, just a stainless spring handle welded on.

: I guess the interesting thing is that since we're building this thing at a hot rod shop, i pulled a 1953 Ford truck jack handle out of the scrap bin and the rod fit perfectly in the spring. A little heat and two bends, band saw to fit and welded her on!

huntfishgrill · Post by **huntfishgrill** » December 30th, 2013, 8:49 pm

Next up, protection for the inexpensive tail lights. I described what i wanted to do to my buddy, and he suggested that we do my idea with scrap XM. After we broke the material to our pattern, we decided some rod material would class up the things, and add some beef. (they are for protection after all) They're now affectionately known as the "lobster traps".

: The Lobster Traps should look fine once powder coated. XM isn't really designed for this small of detail we quickly found out LOL

huntfishgrill · Post by **huntfishgrill** » December 30th, 2013, 8:58 pm

Now we're splitting hairs, and honestly this is the part I love! I have obsessed over a simple idea for stabilizing this thing while cooking. The fact that it had a large rear deck just made me wonder how easily it would tip when someone sits or jumps on it while cooking. After a million ideas ran through my head over the past few months one idea kept popping up. Fold out legs or leg seemed worth a try. My buddy Ben took my sketch and translated to a single leg design that I have to admit is perfect. It folds under the frame and pins in easily for trailering and is super clean looking to boot.

huntfishgrill · Post by **huntfishgrill** » December 30th, 2013, 9:10 pm

The very last feature that I had on my list since day one, was a simple rail box and tie-downs for my Yeti cooler. It seems trivial, but I knew all along that a cooler would always be traveling with this rig, so it never left my mind to build some version of a cooler rack. I bent some of the scrap 1953 Ford truck jack handle used on the FB heat handle into loops for the tie-down points. Once I did that Ben agreed that we could stay a little longer and build a cooler rack. I immediately voted to drag out the pipe bender again. It saves so much time if you can get past the voodoo jungle math required to get specific-length matching pieces. We opted for two bent rails and notched cross bars. Simple and insanely strong design, and it matches the shelf and CC supports perfectly. Consider it an accidental theme of sorts LOL.

Smokeone · Post by **Smokeone** » December 30th, 2013, 9:18 pm

Is your rear leg adjustable? Might be beneficial to make it adjustable. Just thinking out loud there, sorry.

huntfishgrill · Post by **huntfishgrill** » December 30th, 2013, 9:23 pm

Smokeone wrote:
Is your rear leg adjustable? Might be beneficial to make it adjustable. Just thinking out loud there, sorry.

No it isn't, we talked about it, but if it's on too unlevel ground I'll just throw a two-by under it or something. It's just so simple and clean, we thought that it would work and be plenty good enough the way it is. Believe me I talked about making a pinned adjustable slide-out, but it was overkill. which makes me laugh when i look at the rest of this beast I build to cook a chicken or butt. LOL

Post by **Big T** » December 30th, 2013, 9:55 pm

looks like it's about time to fire it up.

Post by **Rodcrafter** » December 31st, 2013, 7:10 am

Looks great the tongue jack will do all the adjusting too. Good job!

Clover Ridge Smokers · Post by **Clover Ridge Smokers** » December 31st, 2013, 7:24 am

bluecatfish · Post by **bluecatfish** » December 31st, 2013, 2:56 pm

That is a clean looking design with all the rounded corners! Hope it cooks as good as it looks!

dwwantasmoker · Post by **dwwantasmoker** » January 1st, 2014, 1:03 am

Smokeone · Post by **Smokeone** » January 1st, 2014, 9:24 am

Sounds like you got a plan that will work! I don't think there is such a thing as overkill in smoker building!

Gizmo · Post by **Gizmo** » January 1st, 2014, 9:50 am

S1 you have a point there …. but your hat covers it well ….

huntfishgrill · Post by **huntfishgrill** » January 1st, 2014, 9:09 pm

bluecatfish wrote:
That is a clean looking design with all the rounded corners! Hope it cooks as good as it looks!

Hahaha yeah me too! On the test fires it was smooth burning and very predictable so i have high hopes for it. She'll make the cut i think!

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