jwsimpleville
Meat Mopper
If your diameter is 14" I would say make your firebox 14Lx14W and then play with your height based on the options you want.
As RW notes.... bigger is better for a FB...... The size of the FB does not affect how the smoker cooks... It doesn't affect the exhaust... or the amount of heat you cook with.... A larger FB just makes life easier like ash storage, adding wood, uniform temps, more thermal mass, etc....
I will be seeing the guy I was having cut my steel today. I am hoping he did not start cutting the firebox yet. He said they had a sheer go down and was not sure if he could get it cut yesterday. I am thinking of adding 2 inches all the way around. I assume this will not change my FB/CC cooking size but will it change my chimney size? New FB will be 3136 cu in. 200% as to what is needed. Feldon's calculator references the FB for most of its numbers but Dave references the CC size. So I am unsure if I need bigger volume chimney to handle the bigger FB. I can always step the chimney pipe up to 3in instead of 2.5. Is there a preference on Diameter size.
Thanks,
Jason
On this small of a cooker, your probably right about not needing to add the hinges first, door is light enough to handle, just tack weld something on there to give you a handle to hold onto it when doing the final cut. On a large smoker though, where the door can weight 40lbs or even more, the hinges make it nice, not having to worry about wrestling with that thing.I've never agreed with the school of thought that you should mount your hinges after making the first to cut off the cook chamber door, if anything it will make things more difficult when you try to add the flanges.