Spent a day working with an Electrician buddy so got a little $$, managed to get the last flue installed and bought the 3" pipe for the stacks. Opted for a bevel cut on the stacks, they're 18" tall so most of the smoke won't be in the face of the operator. The next steps when I can afford materials will be the handle for the smoke chamber door, burn basket and lastly the grill surface. The pics of the stacks are shaded out, I have way too many things going on in the bsmt to advertise, the last thing I need is someone local recognizing something and breaking in. While those chances are remote I don't have the funds to replace my tools and I didn't have the drive to clean up my mess.

Looking good.

Way beyond my skill level with tools and such. I bring things to the table, this kind of stuff is not among them.

Maybe I can buy one instead.

I am not sure if someone else ask this but what are the inside of the drums coated with? It could be bad for your health. You might want to clean it off or try and burn it off. It might be best with a combination of both cleaning and burning before you put food in it.

Otherwise great post!

Here's a pretty good idea too, wouldn't be hard to make your own either.

http://www.smokedaddyinc.com/smokers.htm

Engineer, the lower drum (burn portion) is epoxy coated and originally held water based tool coolant from a machine shop. The upper (food) barrel has no coating. Once I get the burn basket done it's going to be put out in the driveway, fired up and allowed to burn for about 8-12 hours so all of the epoxy will be gone. Then I'll take it to the quicke wash and pressure wash it out so there's no soot left but that's still in the future right now.

Okay, go the $$ together to buy everything but the steel for the grill so I'll be putting the burn basket together this week and burning it out. We have a guy up here that recycles appliances so I'm going to see if I can get some oven grills from him so I don't have to build the grill from scratch with what I calculated out to be about 150' of 1/4" steel rod.

Sorry, took a bit longer. We've started getting snow and I wanted to finish getting outside cleaned up before everything was buried until May. Now it's snowing so I'm holed up taking care of inside stuff and the first order of business was the burn basket.
I welded everything, now in hindsight I should have welded the framework for the basket together and secured the mesh with self tapping screws and washers. The issue is the 1/2" EMT was heavy enough to require a higher heat on the welder but the mesh was thin enough it burned though so it took longer and I had to be very careful. Both the mesh and pipe were galvanized so I would recommend a respirator when welding it together, I'm still coughing up zinc.

Step 1: I got 2 10' sticks of 1/2" EMT pipe and had a buddy who's an electrician bend an 18" circle. The circles aren't perfect because it was done by hand but I wasn't concerned, it's a burn basket. Once the circles were done I cut off the excess and welded the ends together.


Step 2: I wanted extra support under the mesh on the bottom so it wouldn't sag down so I used the excess EMT and put an "X" in the circle that was going to be the bottom then cut and welded the piece of mesh to it.


Step 3: I wanted 4" of air clearance from the bottom of the basket to the bottom of the barrel so I cut 5 4" legs, 4 on the perimeter and 1 in the middle.


Step 4: Considering the size of wood that may be used in it I decided on 6" sides so again using the EMT scraps I cut 4 pieces 6" long and welded them on. Then attached the upper ring to them.


Step 5: My final height ended up at 8" so I cut a 9" tall strip of mesh and started wrapping and welding it to the outside of the basket.


Step 6: Done and it fit perfectly.


Next step will be the grill portion, I have a neighbor who scraps out appliances, when he gets a stove in I'm going to get the over racks from him. That may be a week or a month but the racks will be free vs buying them premade from the store would be about $60 or fabricating them myself would be about $50 in material and untold hours cutting and welding. When the weather breaks I'll do the burn out on it, I want to do this before the grills are installed because I don't want the soot from the paint/epoxy coating the cooking surfaces.

This is cool and I need to get some drums asap





thanks