Restoring my first love

[gorillagrilla]

This is my old gal . She is an Char broil American Gourmet. Not my first smoker but my first offset, and the most used !! Tiny little smoker but great for apartment living .Moved on to bigger and better but still softspot for the little workhorse.

Like to restore her but other than the gorilla method of diving in with a drill and wire wheel to remove the crust and rust I dont know what might make it easier. Crust not difficult but rust may not be so easy.Any suggestions would be helpfull. tanks !

 

[pigcicles]

A wire cup wheel and an abrasive pad (both available at Wally's and home improvement stores) that attaches to the drill will make the work a lot easier if you don't have larger power tools to get her back to shape.

 

[gorillagrilla]

Drill and wheel might be all she can take actually now lookin at it. Didnt make these all that thick to begin with

 

[mavrick813]

Not to be too harsh, But with the thinness of this metal and the ammount of rust I am not sure your going to have much left of her when your done Wiring it out. From the look of the picture it looks like the rust has already broken through in a few places on the lower half Backside.

But if you must, I'd say a wire wheel and a drill. And a couple of those wire brushes that are a bit larger then a tooth brush. Get a MASK (Re-breather preferrably), and GOGGLES. Take her all apart while your working on her. Wire her all down and give her a thorough washing out then drying and spray each piece seperatley with High temp paint. 2-3 coats.

Lastly Rebuild her with NEW hardware, and re-stain the wood slats.

If you give it a go, I want to see pics.

g/l

Mike

 

[richoso1]

Sounds like a worthy project, good luck my friend.

 

[packplantpath]

If the metal is really thin, Dutch turned me on to a method that may help, at least on the firebox. Season it like cast iron, just rub lard on the firebox, and it cooks on. No more rust, and since you are not cooking on it, you can ignore the rust and not even sand. Every 3 or 4 smokes, I just add a bit more lard to keep it from rusting. Not sure if the cooking chamber gets hot enough for this to work though.

The older ones were much thicker metal, so you may have enough to grind away and repaint.

 

[flip]

A lot of 'online resources' call for a seasoning of 250* on new (or abused) iron. Why wouldn't your cook chamber get this hot? Unless you're looking for a seasoning closer to the 500* mark, in which case I agree.

I like this idea over trying to brush all the rust off as you'll most likely wind up too thin in spots to hold heat as well when you're done with your drill.

 

[packplantpath]

I've seen places claim you can season iron at 250* too, but I've never had any success with it. I put a pan in the oven at 250* for hours, and it was still sticky. I finally found somebody telling try it at 350ish, and never looked back. I suppose eventually, it would dry at 250*, like over a long brisket cook