Horizontal/vertical WH smoker build

Poorman's plasma cutter - 5" x .040" cut off wheel on the grinder


Doors all cut with the exception of a small door on the end of the firebox for lighting the fire.


Round grate from the little brinkmann type smoker. WOuld be a shame to have to grind off the ceramic coating on the inside of the tanks in places to put something in to hold grates. Maybe I'll drill a few holes top and bottom and bolt some standards(vertical pieces for adjustable shelving) in for shelf/grate brackets.


going to pick up some flatbar this morning for door flanges

Looks like a friendly beast maybe?

Door flanges done. Just picked up that travel trailer in the background and haven't washed it yet.


Here's a shot of the backside of a door while welding on a flange. Notched the doors with a 1/4" thick grinding disc. Sort of a open end plug weld.

Thanks. Have things calmed down in Argentina? There was some turmoil several years back IIRC.

She's got legs now. Last thing I did last night. There's actually two pipe bungs on the bottom of the vertical tank, front and rear, which is how it's able to sit like that. Couple of things came out a little crooked due to working on crooked ground. I've got a shop I'm building but it's not done enough to work in yet. A workbench, sawhorses and concrete floor will be nice and it's what I'm used to. Now I remember why I liked to stay in the shop as opposed to working out in the field doing installation. I built electric signs for 25 years. Mainly worked with aluminum which is much nicer, lighter and cleaner to work with than steel.


Old Chevy truck parts finally found their way onto this thing. Clutch linkage from 47-54 Chevy truck. The two on the left are the two preformed ends with built on flange. Those made the vertical door hinges and I welded the end closed on the female half which faces up so it will shed rain. They both go the same way so I can lift the door off if I want. The other four hinges are completely hand made using more of the linkage, bent in a vise after heating with a torch. Made flanges with small slivers of the tube. Couldn't find any washers and this probably looks better than washers anyway.

Here's the vertical hinges in place.


Horizontal door hinges


Getting close to being finished with the fabrication.


Those legs on the firebox end are just sitting there in this pick. They got welded on to the other end of the firebox and the long legs got welded under the center of the vertical tank. Those are running board brackets from the same truck(s). I've got 3-4 of those trucks sitting here, 2 came in pieces. One's in the beginning stage of doing the S-10 frame swap.

Grates, a flue pipe and some handles/latches is all that's left for fab work. Maybe some little shelves below the horizontal doors as it seems to be a standard thing to do. I suppose it prevents people from bumping or leaning on the hotter surface of the tanks too. Especially the firebox. That would leave a mark on a bare leg. Paint and thermometers and she be done.Might hold off on the paint until I use it a few times.Might decide I need something welded on to hang BBQ tools or something. Maybe a flat area on the top of the firebox to use as a burner etc. Hoping to season it this aft/eve and test it out tomorrow with 20lbs of chicken leg quarters. I've got a Boston Butt pork roast I might throw on there too. After all the leaning over and contortion, I'm ready to sit in a chair and monitor it for 6-8 hours.

Ahumadora said:

 
Pollard,

ou are knocking that out pretty quick.

Yep Argentina is all F%#$# up and always will be.   

Only thing I can see is you may want to reinforce where the hinges are welded ontothe door seal of the horizontal cooker.   They may flex or work the weld on the flange.

Post us food pics and a selfie of the well deserved beer drinking while it cooks.

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Good catch. I'll run a couple beads of weld at the flange/door right at that spot on the outside. Can't weld the flanges on solid because the door is so thin. I bought some wood stove sealant to use as a seam sealer so that rain won't go down between them all the time.

JckDanls 07 said:

Also... think about 4 wheels with a tow bar for moving... notice the tow bar on mine.. I hook to lawn mower or golf cart.. you'd be surprised how easy it is to roll around the yard by hand ..

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We live on 8 acres of what used to be forest until we got here a few years ago and it's rocky and hasn't been graded much. I would have to have a 4 foot wide axle so that it wouldn't rock back and forth and tip over. I'm going to build a pole shed for it with a wall or two to block off the predominate winds. At any rate, I don't plan on moving it but if I need to, my tractor lift arms pick it right up.

I probably won't do the door prop exactly like you have but it did give me an idea. I happen to have two e-brake pedal arms from the old Chevys and they're curved just about right. I'm thinking two of them. One as a front prop like yours and one aiming back to keep it from opening too far. With my thin tanks, if I had the door propped up and a gust of wind blew it all the way back, it would bend the tank. Either that or do it like a lid on a chest that has the arms with a slot and larger opening on one end of the slot where the rod drops in and locks it.

Got a fire grate and horizontal cooking grate made. Cooking grate is ugly and thin so I'll make a better one sometime. I'm just far enough along that I could have smoked some leg quarters Saturday, which was my plan. Supposed to be 82F and sunny. It rained on and off  Sat ans all day Sun. Killin me. Been drooling over smoking vids on utube which doesn't help but I'm learning a few things. Mon and Tues are supposed to be nice. I've got very little small wood covered from the rain. I don't plan on using charcoal but I might have to on this first go around. I'm sure I can dig down in my oak and hickory piles of bigger stuff and find dry. Only got a few pieces of cherry but I'm not going to use them right off the bat.

I did manage to light a fire in the box friday night. That small tank had been painted on the outside so I wanted to burn it off. Won't be able to use the vert until I get some shelf standards put in. Not finding much for those online so I'll probably be making them. I closed up the doors when the fire had gone down to coals. Heats up pretty good. Kind of hot in the horiz chamber near the FB so I built a heat management plate yesterday.

Pics - yes, I moved the plastic drum before lighting a fire


added some mesh on top of the fire grate - not shown here



This little starting fire got me up to 200 F real quick so with some coal base plus a split going, I should be good. I was worried since my firebox is smaller than what the calculator says and smaller than all the retail units.

Thought I had a pic of my heat management plate but I guess I don't. 15" wide in my 18" tank, full length, firebox end bent up a bit with radius to fit the end, started with two rows of four 1/2" holes near the fire box, then two rows 5/8, two 3/4 and two 7/8". That gave me 10-20 degrees difference from right to left on the horiz chamber. Going to season it for 2-3 hours and make sure I can hold a temperature. I've got 10 lbs of leg qtrs brining that I'll cook this afternoon and a 16 lbs butt in the fridge that I'm not sure what I'm going to do with or when. That's one big butt.

Hadn't thought of the grease/creosote dripping down but I guess I'll do something for that.

Already got a stack in the center. 1st smoke is done.

Finished it up enough to do a couple of test runs, one with leg quarters and one with butts and briskets



Managed to keep the smoke blue most of the time -- after some practice -- I'll be putting some door latches on before I use it again so I don't have to lean logs on it


Did chicken for the first go around - meat was good -- skin was leather although I did turn up the heat towards the end so it was crispy leather


Brisket and a couple of butts


Here's one of the butts - came out awesome -- brisket came out pretty good -- after being up every 1-2 hours all night, I lost patience and never got it up to 195-205 F to where the collagen changes to gelatin so it wasn't super moist or super tender. Definitely edible and it had a perfectly defined 1/4 inch smoke ring. I used some old McCormick Grill Mates as a rub but I think it had lost all it's uumph. I'm going to try another one with a better rub or do it Texas style with kosher/pepper rub. If I can't make it flavorful, I'll start corning it before smoking. We used to get pre-smoked briskets at Sam's Club and they had tons of flavor but they weren't cheap. If I could come close to those, I'd be a happy camper.


That's about 230 F but at 250 F the smoke chugs out pretty fast. My stack is probably too tall considering it's coming off of a vertical tank which also acts as a stack. That's a 5 inch gas appliance vent and it's galvanized. I'm going to swap it for a piece of 6 inch stainless steel stove pipe.