250 Gallon Reverse Flow FIRST BUILD!!!

[tykenn28]

Cutting the doors out this weekend. We have them marked where we think they should be but before we open it up I was just curious if there was an "optimal" location for the top cut of the door. I believe now we have it located roughly three inches down from 12 o'clock. I've just been looking at pictures and it looks to me like most are cut pretty close to that.

 

[lendecatural]

That will work just fine, no hard, fast rule on that one.

 

[tykenn28]

Perfect!!! thanks for the response. I've gotta work Saturday so hopefully I'm around to get some pictures to post (Not like you guys haven't seen a 250 gallon smoker build before) but the plan is to cut this thing open this weekend and burn her out real good.

 

[tykenn28]

FINALLY we all had some time Saturday to make some significant progress and I've got pictures that prove we really are building a smoker and not just on here asking a hundred questions and wasting everyone's time.

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• tykenn28
• May 18, 2015

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• tykenn28
• May 18, 2015

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• May 18, 2015

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[tykenn28]

We're thinking our laser cut pieces will be done today so we can assemble our FB/vents/RF plate. Also this week we're hoping to do a little fab work on the trailer and have it ready to put the tank on it by the weekend.

 

[smokejumper]

Nice work.

Very pretty welds.

That style of hinge can make it a challenge to seal the top edge of the door though.

 

[tykenn28]

 
Nice work.

Very pretty welds.

That style of hinge can make it a challenge to seal the top edge of the door though.

Why is that? I was kinda  curious why I hadn't seen many like this but we've got a good idea of how we want to seal the CC so we went with them. We can always cut them off and replace if needed.

 

[smokejumper]

The hinge line being so close to the cut prevents you from having a flange on the door at the top.
In order to have a continuous flange to seal the door, it would need to be on the inside of the CC instead of on the outside of the door.
This reduces the width of the door opening.

 

[daveomak]

With hinges installed like you did, you can not put a door seal on the outside of the door.... It will have to be mounted on the inside of the door for the top seal... which is OK...
To do that, drill holes in the tank about 3/8" up from the opening... 3/8" holes... clamp the door seal to the tank, and blind weld through the holes... That's one of the things that happens when all the details aren't worked out before hand... There are other pitfalls.... It's the details during the build that are time consuming.....

Hinge & Door Seal installation:

.....click on pic to enlarge.....

Hinge and Door Seal.jpg

• daveomak
• May 18, 2015

 

[daveomak]

For door seal material, I recommend 14 or 16 gauge steel..... it is thin enough to be hammered to fit contour for an air tight seal... Blind weld the seal...... either from inside or outside... the blind weld can be done if a slot is ground on the edge of the door also... Weld the ends of the seals first... so shrinkage will "tighten" the seal....

...cLick on pic to enlarge....

224797db_PlugandSlotWelds.gif

• daveomak
• May 18, 2015

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• daveomak
• May 18, 2015

 

[tykenn28]

Yeah we've planned all along to do our upper door seal on the inside. I saw some others like that so figured it worked fine. Lack of fab experience and ease of installation were factors in using the hinges we used. Good news is, if we cant get the CC sealed after we have latches and gasket in place we'll cut the hinges off and go another route. I will print off your drawings of the seals tomorrow at work they'll come in very handy. Dad is doing all the welding so I'll show them to him.

 

[3 degrees]

what's the dimension of your cc doors?

 

[tykenn28]

cant remember exactly off the top of my head but I think the doors are 30" each. we drew them on two weeks ago but have just got to cutting them out this last Saturday. We wanted to make sure there was plenty of room to easily put a nice size hog in without much trouble. Why do you ask?

 

[tykenn28]

ok got another question for all the experts. Is there an optimal distance to inset your FB into the CC? we've got our opening cut out but it's still held on in a few places.(the cut is barely visible on the last picture I posted) we kinda feel like its gonna be inset too far, so before we drop it out and assemble our firebox and attach it I thought I'd double check with all of you while we can still fill the cut back with welds. I'm just afraid as far in as it is now it might make the FB side considerably warmer that the opposite side.

 

[smokejumper]

This is another area where there are no hard and fast rules.

In my opinion the optimal distance is where the width of the top of the FB to CC opening matches the width of the RF plate.

In most cases that will be where the tank dome starts, since most builders base the width and height of the opening on the tank radius. But not always.

Yours looks to be such a case. Since the top of your FB will not be directly below your grate, it should be OK. You can also add a FB baffle plate (like a false ceiling in the FB) like some have done to help tame the hot spot. Dave has a good drawing of it, which I cannot find a link to at the moment, but he should be along in due time.

 

[tykenn28]

 
This is another area where there are no hard and fast rules.

In my opinion the optimal distance is where the width of the top of the FB to CC opening matches the width of the RF plate.

In most cases that will be where the tank dome starts, since most builders base the width and height of the opening on the tank radius. But not always.

Yours looks to be such a case. Since the top of your FB will not be directly below your grate, it should be OK. You can also add a FB baffle plate (like a false ceiling in the FB) like some have done to help tame the hot spot. Dave has a good drawing of it, which I cannot find a link to at the moment, but he should be along in due time.

yeah I've seen Dave's post. basically just another sheet of metal with an air gap between correct? Good to know it shouldn't make or break the smoker. that's what I was looking for. I think we'll back it out at least a few inches but probably not a lot more than that. Thanks a lot for the information. SmokeJumper

 

[smokejumper]

 
yeah I've seen Dave's post. basically just another sheet of metal with an air gap between correct?

Yep.

 
 Good to know it shouldn't make or break the smoker. that's what I was looking for. I think we'll back it out at least a few inches but probably not a lot more than that. Thanks a lot for the information. SmokeJumper

No problem.
Really enjoying seeing this big build come together.

 

[tykenn28]

Ok been quiet for a while waiting on all our RF plate/Firebox steel to show up. cooking a hog Saturday. Steel showed up yesterday morning and looked great. . . . until we measured it. I made the cut sheet PDF based on a 5x10 sheet of 1/4". using that size we were able to get pieces to make a FB that was 110% of the minimum required size for our smoker. The draftsman  loaded a 4x10 sheet and changed all the measurements to be as close as possible and still fit on a 4x10. Needless to say our RF plate was 1' too short and the FB pieces couldn't be constructed into a square.

Called our dad at work and he went and talked to the manager and they talked to the draftsman  and he blamed us. His manager then confronted him with the printed PDF proving that what we ordered and what we received weren't even in the same ballpark. Long story short, they made it priority #1 this morning and my brother is picking up the new steel as we speak. Sorry for the rambling but that's where we're at on the build. Should be a lot closer to smoking by the end of the night. Pictures to follow.

 

[tykenn28]

My brother got the new cuts and sounds like they're all perfect. I'm at work while he's sweating his ass off welding but it should still get done in time!!!!

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• tykenn28
• Jun 10, 2015

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• tykenn28
• Jun 10, 2015

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• tykenn28
• Jun 10, 2015

The FB pieces fit together unlike what we got yesterday. AHhhhhhh it's a beautiful sight

 

[gary s]

Looking Good !!!

Gary