I think most guys on here notch the tank and let the FB slide into the tank. I have seen some of them that notch the FB to fit the end of the tank. I think the main thing you have to watch out for is creating a spot where the hot air coming from your FB doesn't get trapped from going to your CC. I have seen a few builds on here where that happened and they had to cut the FB off and redesign them. there are a lot of builds on here with good pics that are round CC with square FB's so you should be able to get a good idea of how to do it.
Notching the tank it will be seems that will be the easiest thing to do and sounds like the best as we'll how often dose that happen thanks for the response
Next question would be if you use a coal box in your fire box and have an ash pan under dose the fire box need to be larger in size I have a 40 gal cc and calculated the fire box to be 14w x 14h x 16l
Smurf- I don't think there is any advantage.
Tinker, did u run the numbers through the pit calc? If so your numbers are right. The ash pan and basket don't change the required size. Basically that is just total volume needed, you won't be filling that entire space with fuel, more like a third or so will be fuel, the rest is for air.
Yes sir I ran the calculator just trying to over think things I guess just would like to get it as close to right as possible so hopefully there will not be much tweaking after the fact just cookin
Next question is there any reason why the fire box door can't be on the front of the fire box instead of on the end still going to draft from the end just want the door to load the wood on the front
Thanks for everyone's input have took time to figure out posting pictures but I can assure you it is happening and sorry about what some may think is silly questions
We'll for my next question smoke stack length what is optimal I understand that it is in relation to the diameter I have one size that would be around 14" and another that would be 36" I was thinking somewhere in between like 26" what do y'all think is optimal in height and I'll try to match diameter to get the right volume
If you run your numbers through the pit calculator it will give you the preferred lengths. You can change your diameters to see what each length will be. I like for my stack to be tall enough that it's not blowing smoke in my face but not so tall that it won't go in an 8' roll up door.
Wish I knew how to post pics but I was able to find the 2.75 dia pipe I was looking for that put the height right at 80" other wise the 2.375 dia would have been 90" which I was thinking was just a tad to tall would be neat to try different dia lengths to see what might change if anything
There's a forum on the main page that explains how to post a picture. I'm not criticizing you but I would try to find a larger diameter pipe for your stack, 80 or 90 inches is going to be very tall on top of your build. I know that the larger the diameter is the shorter the length will be. You can probably find a piece on craigslist pretty cheap.