Well I made it, the smoker is making smoke. I fired it up last night to burn it off and got it to 650* for 3 hours...she held together lol. I let it come down to 250*and added my apple wood for the 4
butts I am smoking. I have 8 racks of ribs after the butts come out. I was 3 racks to many to make a full smoke and it is good cuz the ribs would have been done way early. I am pleased with the way the smoker is performing, it is staying within at a 5* difference between the right and left temp gauge. the probe to the gauges are an inch away from the cooking grate. I have been tampering with the vents to see how it affects the heat, but won't use that as law, being my doors aren't sealed all tho I have very little smoke out of the door on the CC none out of the firebox. But there is enough air entrance as I have my vents at 1/4 opening. Q-view will be with the 10 or so pic I took of the smoker.
I have a few thing to complete ,but didn't stop me from my smoke.
Make counter top/work station out of 2"thick maple desk top I have.
Make vent handles, can't decide what I want yet.
Put the grate in the base for stacking wood on.
Seal the doors with high temp silicone.
Get a good seat of meat thermometers.
Add diamond plate to the top of fire box for a cooking plate.
Make a cap for top of chimney.
Have a plaque made to go between handle/door braces on cc that says KILLER"B"bq and weld it on
Paint her up after any remaining mods I come up with.
Huge thanks to Dave Omark and Gary and few others who helped me plan this build out I may still be in the planing stages if I didn't get there help. I am glad it is near done, but sad because now I want to build another one. It has been a fun build when I did get the time, I finally had a few friends say they were buying meat better have it ready. That was 2 weeks ago. I thought they were kidding until last weekend when they bought the 65 lbs of meat. So simple motivation I guess.
I thank all of you who have viewed and replied, Sorry it has been strung out, yet somewhat entertaining.