52 IH Fridge build - low cost tools

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grupe

Newbie
Original poster
Nov 20, 2010
26
10
Yet another smoker build out of a fridge. Most of the info I am going to post came from other threads on the forum, but it thought I would show you what I am doing. I do want to note that this one was built with no fancy tools (no wire feed welder, plasma torch, normal torch, etc).

Locating a fridge to use was not nearly as easy as I thought it would be. After keeping an eye on CraigsList and posting a want add on Craigslist for three months, I gave up. I knew my dad had an old fridge in the barn back home that had not been used for years. He was busy harvesting so it took him a while to confirm that the inside was in face metal. After that, the race was on to get it back to my place. I got one of my buddies to pick it up when he was back in the area.

Here is what she looked like when she got to my place. We had already removed the compress and the freezer.


And here is a picture of the inside. The greenish/blue stuff around the outside seemed to be some kind of plastic so that would need to go.


Here is a pic of the inside of the door after removing the plastic stuff.

 

Next step, find some meal. I located a 4X8 sheet of 16 gauge black steal at a locale fab shop for $62.50. I picked it up, traced around the door with a pencil (use caulk if you have it), fired up the air compressor, oiled up the cut off wheel and an hour later I had the sheet cut for the door. For all of you that are wondering, I used my $10 harbor freight cut off wheel to cut all the metal for this build. I know it is slow and painful, but it is what I have at this point.


On to the floor. I cut it out using the same process. I hadn’t thought about it a lot, but there was another sheet of metal under it with.


Next I put her on her back and cut out the other piece of the floor.


Up until now, everything was super easy. Just mark and cut. You don’t need to do a great job as what you cut out is going to get covered up. The next thing up is building the angles for the side and top and building a new box to go in the base. I didn’t really have money in the budget for one sheet of metal so I spent at least a few minutes making sure I knew how I wanted to cut the remaining metal so I wouldn’t run out.

Now something they don’t talk about on the forums, sometimes the most important tool you can have is some scrape card board. Building templates out of cardboard will save you a ton of time and wasted material. Here is how I built the form for the one corner.


And here is a template for the top


Here is a picture of the two side pieces in place


Back to the cardboard template, here is the one I built for the floor.


And here is what it looks like with the metal in place and partial bent to fit.


I am sure some of you are wonder how I bent the metal as I was kind of drawing a blank on how to do that nicely. It isn’t like 16 gauge metal bends super easily without specialize equipment. What I did was run the cut off wheel over the back side of the place where the metal needed to get bent. I didn’t cut all the way through the metal. I did this until I could bend the metal. Don’t cut to much as you want to maintain as much of the strength in the metal as possible. I had it clamped down to some wood that was on saw horses. It was a total pain, but really didn’t take that long. The base box took about 60 minutes to cut out, score and bend. Mind you I do have a good air compressor.

Time to fit the heating element. I ordered this element of eBay after I was sure it would fit in the base. I ended up getting part number WB44X173 as it was the right size and puts off 3410 watts running 240 volts. I picked up a metal box at Lowes, a cover to go over it and 5’ of 10-3 cord. After that I cut a hold for the element to go into the box and drill some holes to secure it to the base. On the left you can see a piece of angle iron bolted to the pan to keep the element off the pan.


Here is what she looks like with the pan and sides bent and in place


Before I ordered a latch, I wanted to see what the gap was like between the door and the fridge. To do this, I re-installed the door and put two rivet in to correctly measure the gap. I ended up buying what is called a “Toggle Clamp” (see eBay). Now I am waiting for my door latch to arrive. It wasn’t posted when I ordered the latch or I would have purchased "rubber snowmobile hood latches" like MossyMo did. See here: http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/131352/some-random-questions#post_896168

More to come as soon as I have my door latch.
 
The latch I got sucks so I will need to order some "rubber snowmobile hood latches" one of these days. Until then I am just wrapping a tie down strap around the smoker.

My buddy and I pulled out all the new metal and used high temp silicon to seal the seams. We then riveted the pieces into place. I was struggling a little on what i was going to use for metal to mount the shelves on, but the solution came to me. I was at an auction and they had a 2 post server rack. I ended up cutting it up and mounting a piece of it in each corner. Then I used some of the remaining metal to run cross pieces which the gates sit on. Here is how it looks with a couple gates in place


I like to use chunk wood as it is basically free. I modified an old chip pan I had to sit right above the element. In the past I have had issues with the wood catching on fire when the wood is on a piece of metal which sits right on the element so I built some feet out of bolts. The chip pan sits about ¾ of an inch above the element and it worked great.


Here is a picture of the smoke coming out of the fridge. The amazing thing was that it smoked just like this for 10 hours on 3 chunks of wood.


I ran another couple of pieces of metal and mounted a drip pan above the chip pan. I don’t think the wife is going to miss it, but who knows. When I started my smoke, I filled it up with water as well to keep everything nice and moist. At the end of the 10 hour smoke, it was bone dry which indicates I might need to add some water. Not a big surprise I know.


Here is a picture of the unit with all the selves in place. I can easily add more if I need to. The other great thing is that I can pull them all out in a matter of minutes and switch it over to hangers for when we do sausage.


On another thread, a guy mounted a fan in the top of his so that he could keep a constant temp. That seemed like a great idea to me until I went looking for motors to run the fan. The cheapest one I found was $62 which seemed a little high for a fridge smoker. At that same auction where I got the server rack, they had an old paint stirrer. That seemed like just the ticket and I picked it up for $7. I know it is way bigger than what I need, but I can buy a lot of electricity for the price difference between a new motor and this repurposed one. I am not going to install the fan until it warms up a little, but the parts are ready. The fan blade came off eBay of course.


That is where she is until the snow melts. I plan on painting it and a few other things then. Let me know if you have any questions.

Two of my buddies said that I made the best ribs they had ever had on my first run. I find that hard to believe, but they were the best ones I have ever made.
 
Looks like it's gonna be a nice smoker-what kinda temps are you getting from your element?
 
It went from 17 F to 194 F in 17 degree weather in 45 minutes. After that it held within 2 degrees of 225 all day. I didn't really try to get it any higher than that, but I am sure I could hold 300 if needed. I should insulate the bottom and back of the bottom box to help stop heat lose as well. Maybe this spring.
 
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Great deal on LEM Grinders!

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