I got part of the entrance to the FB tacked today. The overall frame I did earlier this week. hopefully tomorrow, I will be able to finish the frame portion. Once the 3rd tank is cut for the FB, it will be welded with this entrance area to a 1/4" plate on top of the caster supports, insulated and wraped with a 16ga skin. these pic's aren't the best, taken with my phone. All of this is being done on my lunch hour, so progress is not the fastest. TIG welding is starting to get a little easier, still playing around with the stickout from the cup, along with the amp settings. I'll get it figured out when I'm done.
This should help, it is a screen shot of the base without the skin on the firebox. This fits below the CC. The reason I went with a round back half of the FB is that we had a 3rd tank, and could save cost on the extra metal. Could have gone either way, but the budget is tight. it will be interesting to see how it all goes together.
Cut the chimneys during lunch. In my huring, one is the correct length, the other is about 3" long. Is that a big deal? If not, don't really want to take the time to recut.
FB door is finished welding. That took a bit. All the rest of my stuff will be with Mig now. Buddy got the tanks cut, FB entry to CC tank is cut, just has to do the chimney cut outs.
Paint question, anybody have a good way of figuring out how much I need? would 1 quart be to much? how many cans of rattle can paint?
Ok, I have read all the threads in the paint section, still confused on brands. I live in NE Wisconsin, so it is cold in the winter. need something that will take the extreemes. is there a high temp paint that will cure without the heat? parts of this smoker will not be exposed to high temps, but I would just prefer to use one type of paint if possible. Any recommendations? Valspar needs heat cure time, not sure about the rest. I do have an HLVP gun, but would rattle can paint, or brush it on also.
I use rustoleum high heat paint, you can get it in rattle can or HVLP, it doesn't require heat to cure. I would buy a quart and put a couple of coats on it, you can get it from Walmart or lowes and it's cheap. I would go with black, I used the silver on my last pit and I'm going to have to paint it black because it has discolored. jm2cw
Put in a long day on Friday at my buddie's. We got both smokers to about the same point. They are not welded together yet, but we have them sitting all together. HAve some fitment issues to grind on yet, but we are getting closser. The plasma cutter wasn't working real well, so we had to use cut off wheels for the fire box cutting. they will be nice when finished.
Attachments
Parts set up for the build
welded base
test fit of mine, needs some work yet
both smokers set up before moving out of the way till we work on them next time.
Anyone, How much paint would one of these need? 1 pint, 1 quart? I'am thinking 2 coats would be needed. Any input would be helpful. Thinking of using por15 black velvet or there new high temp paint. Overall tank dim. is Ø19" x 52", plus firebox,etc....
Thanks
I brought mine home today. It still needs some more work, but is mostly there.
My buddy is deviating from the plan, going to do the front of the fire box differently. Should work out well.
Also, scored a load of apple wood.
- Thanks for all the great feedback. My buddie is great at welding, I'm pretty good at designing once I understand what is needed. (design stuff for work )
- The stack is 3x5 rectangular tube. a Ø4" id pipe was about $90 for the lenght we needed. around $40 for the 3x5.
me neither, but i wasn't going to pay that for it. All of the metal suppliers around here have gone away from letting you pick thru there scrap, the one place that would, said they would have to charge about $50 for the paperwork, so basicly making it to the point that you have to just buy all your metal. I ended up getting all the angle iron/tube stock from speedy metals, but in full, uncut lenghts other than the chimney. It was much cheaper that way.
- Back to last Friday's work. The sand blaster wasn't working the best, so it took about 3hrs to blast the tank. a little bit of moisture in the tank, so the sand was clumping/spitting at times. but we got it done.
Buddie brought home the bigger plasma cutter, wow, that was awesome. If only we would have had that the 1st day we worked, I would have saved an entire morning of using cut off wheels. We had to tweak the fire box tank cuts, what took 1/2 hr, took less than 2 minutes. Oh well, you live an learn, and use what you have.