The Gibson, A pellet fridge project.

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greyape

Fire Starter
Original poster
Dec 26, 2015
52
13
So I recently picked up a few fridges to work off of, and decided to work on this Gibson first.  The plan is to use a smoke daddy pellet burner, maybe with either the gen-u-wine Jerry wood burner on top or a custom version. 




She's torn down for the most part, tubs out and now time to get all the insulation out and start on the bodywork to repair the rust damage down on the lower side.  Looks like I have enough space to fit the pellet pro in between the compressor bump and the door, nice and low in the fridge.


 
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Pellet pro has arrived.  Much larger than what I thought it would be but they did recently upgrade the hopper to 35lbs capacity.  This weekend is bodywork and real construction time.
 
Any updates on this?  Been thinking about building a pellet smoker as well so curious what challenges/successes you have run across?
 
Not a ton of updates yet, spent some serious time working on the outside of the fridge repairing rust damage.  Hopefully by the end of this weekend I'll have most of the bodywork done and fridge in primer at which time I'll start mounting the hopper / exhausts etc.

Plans so far:
  • I'm thinking I will use 4" 6061 Aluminum pipe for the exhausts.  I'm planning on 3 or 4, gotta get the heat down and in GA during the summer, smoking meat starts at 100deg!
  • 120mm fan on a rheostat to add extra through the bottom
  • Extra smoke will be by a couple of items, I picked up a 12" AMNTS, a (formerly known as) Vortex smoker from Smoke Daddy, and/or possibly a custom jen-u-wine jerry style heat deflector above the burn pot.  I don't have space for the original, but I do have a big stinking thick piece of metal.
  • Door will probably be skinned in aluminum for ease of work and weight, unless I can find some stainless somewhere cheat.
  • Still need to buy door gaskets etc.
 
Status update time:

Got the majority of the bodywork done, and she's sitting in primer until all the fabrication is done.  Haven't yet decided on what I am going to use for an exhaust, nor how I am going to mount it, but that is all part of the fun, right?


Got the pellet pro mounted today.  Couldn't use the standard mounting points, so I had to drill out the nuts, and then used toggler anchors through wood on the back side of the outside sheet metal.  Had to remove the hopper assembly, but all is well and good.



 
 I mounted a new box for the pellet pro controller so it wouldn't be quite so close to the floor. Got the box big enough for some future upgrades / planned projects.


Next, I mounted up all the conduit / outside boxes for the wiring.  Boxes will have a main power switch plus controls for the ventilation fan that will be installed for additional airflow in the cabinet. Boxes will also provide access to the interior for any hard wired probes.


Next was the shelving.  I have been looking at different options and kept looking not having much luck in finding anything that met my requirements, fit properly or was reasonably priced.  I don't have welding equipment and $700 for 6 shelves is the quote I received for someone to make them so I kept looking.   I found some masterbuilt shelves at Bass Pro as a complete accessory kit and after some measurements and planning figured out they were the answer I was looking for.  $30 for 2 shelves and 4 brackets.  I bought the 2 they had, and now that I have all the mounts done I'm probably going to order 2 more kits.


I used 6061 Aluminum to make the mounting risers for the brackets.


Because the shelf brackets were slightly longer than the tub, the front tube was mounted on 3/4" Aluminum angle and then mounted to the tub.  The beautiful thing about this mounting method is the square tube is now almost perfectly flush with the outside of the fridge so the flashing / metal between the outside and the tub will be practically flat.  I'll probably end up using a nice piece of 4" 6061 flat to connect them further bracing the front shelf mount.


Used a Kreg shelf pin jig, modified to fit the square tube to drill all the holes.


And the final product.  Fully adjustable shelves, nice smooth slides and the way they are designed even loaded up with meat they will not fall out or tilt too much if you slide them out partially.  Just about perfect I would say.



Now on to the exhaust and vent fans...
 
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Small update this weekend.  Finally bit the bullet, and got the exhaust taken care of.  Had a hard time deciding on what I wanted, where, etc.  I settled on a stock duct hood from Lowes.  It's standard 3.5 x 10 duct size so I'll have a ton of venting area, it has a spring loaded damper door to prevent critters from going back in the smoker when not in use and the price is reasonable.   I've got a couple of ideas for disabling the door during smoking, I don't want to rely only on the air pressure from the fans to keep it open.

  Going with the square duct also makes it significantly easier for cutting the openings in the tub.  The porcelain inside these tubs will put a hurting on some drill bits, and not dulling expensive hole saws is a plus.  



All mounted up, and some trim added around the inside .  I've pulled the duct back out to cut it flush with the angle aluminum.  Not required, my shelf brackets fit around it, but it should be a little cleaner when done.



 
So I think my OCD is taking over. Angles for everything!

Just couldn't stand the sloppy holes around everything. On the final assembly everything will be sealed with high temp silicone as well.

Yes I have to remove the fire pot to put this thing in place, lol. Wish I had payed attention to the difference of the sizes between the cutout dimensions provided on the template for the pellet pro and the actual arm itself. Having a good bit of space around the arm is not problem with a single wall install I'm sure, but with the double wall of the fridge the space was unacceptable to me. While it may be insulated with fire resistant insulation, I don't want smoke penetrating into the cabinet.

 
So after some astute observations by others, and a little self reflection on my build, I decided to set all the control boxes and conduit inside the fridge wall.  So I started setting the boxes.


Next up was the control box.  Had to make an aluminum angle frame for mounting.  


And the cutout in the fridge for the control box.


Now to finish up the rest of the boxes and get all the conduit run!
 
Finished up all the internal conduit finally, had a little bit of time!  All tied to gether like I want now.   One of the conduits drops down through the bottom and curves back in to feed the pellet hopper.  This ledge for the compressor area has definitely changed the way some of this stuff is routed, but I like the fact that this will have no wasted space at the bottom.  Definitely more cook area above.  


 
Wow... 2 month break.  Didn't think it was that long.  Finally located the unobtanium that is Roxul finally.  2 hr drive and I finally have what I need to insulate!  


I did spend a little time painting.  After taking a good look, between my fairly shoddy excuse for body work and the fairly significant amount of damage this thing had I decided to go a bit different on the plan for paint.  Rustoleum hammered copper (quart can).  Trying to get this stuff to spray even is a bit of a bear, thinned 40% and it still was fairly difficult to spray with a standard gun (1.8) tip.  Next time I spray this stuff it will definitely be with different hardware. This stuff is exceptionally thick, but also very durable as I've used it on other projects so it should hold up well here.  Overall I'm fairly pleased, not perfect but I am not a body / paint guy and this stuff hid many of the remaining flaws in the fridge.  All the extra bits / handle etc are all being painted with a bedliner type of material and are coming out good as well.


 
I hear you on that Roxul. I finally found some at a local lumber yard that doubles as a True-Value hardware store.
 
Thanks guys,  on the Roxul it is available at Home Depot, just none close to me. For some reason it's available all over Atlanta, and slightly south but in to central / southern Georgia not a thing.  Guess contractors down here haven't figured out how to use it yet!
 

As for the plate for the stick burner, I'm just going to cut down a door I have laying around for a light duty undercounter safe (3/8" plate steel) and set it on some mounts above the burn pot, nothing fancy.  There is not enough room for the Smoke daddy version, and I don't think it's rocket science. Just get the place close enough to get hot and smolder some wood!
 
Sound slike when I was in the army. My reserve unit was in WV and it get freezing cold in most of the places we trained. Army said we weren't authorized to order the heavy cool weather gear..... Oh well glad you found it. I love how neat your set looks. Where did you get the wire extensions to extend the controller pad? I like your idea of raising it up
 
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