Copying is the greatest form of flattery

[1215]

Can anyone talk to me about how important it is to have your cook height 24" up off the coals? I also have some questions about diffuser placement/height. Too low would just be heating a piece of metal. Too high wouldn't be right either (air and moisture/drippings). Is there a sweet spot for diffuser placement? Is there a sweet spot for lid & chimney height over food being cooked?

Thanks.


P.S. Does Gateway sell/market their drums based on cook volume not total drum volume?

 

[1215]

How about a photo or two?



Will that convince anyone to talk to me about diffuser plates or grill heights? Please?

edit: grinder 'n paint make me the welder I 'aint... I have an older (blue) MM 350 and a (red) Precision 225. This drum clone is going to be really cool but I really need info on grill heights and diffuser plates. Can I Google this? I haven't found anything. Am I searching for the wrong thing or is this the secret sauce of the champs that people don't know (or don't talk about)?

 

[Bummed]

Finding the 'right' answer is going to drive you crazy. I researched a great deal before I finally just said the hell with it and did what I felt was right for my needs. I thought I needed a diffuser plate so I put a shelf with a holed pizza pan about 2" above my basket. I really didn't like it that much as I really prefer to have the juices fall into the coals.

My top shelf is 7" from the top and my basket is 12" tall which leaves about 15" inbetween, 1 cooking grate is more than enough for my needs. I also have the option to use a single rebar that is 2" from the top to hang whatever.

I used this site as a template but still made it my own. I am amazed at the Que this puts out, it's really worth the effort and you won't regret it!

 

[1215]

More pics:



Never took a propane cylinder valve off before. Those f'ers are on there good. Got pissed off (after about 3 hours of wrestling with it) and decided brute force was easiest way to go. Worked super easy with a 48" cheater bar on a crescent wrench. Yes those are bed frame rails. Yes I welded them to a propane tank before properly cleaning/purging the tank. I was so pissed off at that damn tank I would have been fine if it exploded and I died. It was a fight to the death. I won. Did four more after that. Still alive. (welding was with the little red (no gas) spark maker)

 

[1215]

This forum formatting is weird. I'm used to something different. (vBulletin)

I used this site as a template but still made it my own. I am amazed at the Que this puts out, it's really worth the effort and you won't regret it!

I've seen that site. How is putting your meat that close to fire basket? Do you have crazy hot/cold spots? Does it run hot? Cook heights confused the shit out of me for about a week. Everyone says you want your cook surface at least 24" off the coals. But a 55 gal drum is ~34" tall. So a 10" fire basket with a 3" gap for the ash tray puts you at 13". Fudge a little and you have 20" left to put your grate at 24" over the coals. How the F do you fit a fire basket, diffuser plate, a cook surface and meat all in 34"??

You don't. Hence the reason for the title to this thread.

Sooner or later someone will catch on to what I'm doing. I'm just rusty with the welding. Been working on computers/code stuff and haven't welded for a few years. I hope my welding isn't too embarrassing.

 

[1215]

You know the little alcohol swabs the Dr./nurse uses before you get a shot? They sell them at the drug store. Buy them and use them to clean out your respirator prior to wearing it each time. (or marry a nurse and get them for free) Either way, WEAR IT and clean it out every time you grind/cut/weld.

My punishment for not cleaning/wearing: There was a spider in there. Want to see a grown man scream like a little girl?

Also, on the subject of personal protection equipment (PPE), ever see a fireman (or woman) with a beard? (hope not a woman) They shave so their masks have a good/tight seal. Shave and wear a respirator. Your kids will thank you. And fyi, the 3M 6500 series half respirators have a "quick release" feature that allows for very easy beer consumption.

 

[1215]

More pics. I didn't pull her teeth up like that, she's just that mean and vicious.


handle on the kettle is just so I can pick the damn thing up and move it around. Will grind off at some point before paint/power coat.

 

[1215]

Starting to make sense? Sorry for the shameless plug... he's a good guy.

I cut an air compressor tank in half. I stacked the two tanks on on top of each other (put cut side on rounded side) so I could level the half of the tank that's going to be the inner ring around the fire basket. Get that level (plumb) and then I can get the bottom base plate tacked in and level. Because the cut side of the cleaned up top kettle was sitting on the rounded side of the bottom (red) kettle/half, I could tap it with a hammer (or whatever) and get everything level/plumb/square/not fucked up. Think about how a solo cup would slide over a basket ball or a soccer ball, easy to make fine tune adjustments.


I'll go back later and put metal around those tacks. Still worried about how I'm going to put the bottom/base of this drum together. May need to take that bottom plate back off. We'll see... idk, I guess I could get the TIG gun & wire in somewhere crazy if I boxed myself in. We'll see.

 

[1215]

Bed time. Done for tonight. See where I'm going with this?


edit: it's a pita to take pictures and post stuff when I'm working. I'm trying to get as much as I can but if you have questions feel free to ask.

edit #2: If you think I'm screwing something up, feel free to point it out.

 

[1215]

Looking for some help/opinions on the lid and wheels. The two big brand name drum makers each do it a little differently. I really like the simple and clean look of the drums with the two long air intakes however I think for practical reasons I need to do a hinged lid and hand truck style wheels.

Anyone have a reason why I should not do that?


I'm thinking I want a hinged lid because my lid might be pretty heavy. Also thinking that the hinge can double as a tie-down point for transporting the cooker. Similarly with the hand truck style wheels, I feel like that would make it easier to load on & off a trailer, move in & out of the shed and also to shim/level out the cooker at comps.

Anyone have a better idea/suggestion?

 

[1215]

Going to cheat a bit bit for air/fire intake. This will let me use black pipe. I think the existing hole is correct size but wrong thread. I'm probably going to mangle the existing hole/threads badly but that's what Lincoln Electric is for. I want the ability to attach a fan to this disaster.

 

[1215]

Anyone actually reading this or is everyone just clicking to look for pictures? Wondering how hot a charcoal fire gets. I have an inner ring that is attached to the base of the drum. I'm doing an insulated, double wall drum. But I'm also extending the length of the drum (making it taller). On the bottom section, do I need to double wall around that ring or is the ring enough to just pack mineral wool against and be done?

Thanks.

 

[1215]

Got a little distracted today/tonight. Made a little welding cart to move around the two little spark makers I have --a super old HF (blue) "easy mig" flux only and a Lincoln weld pak 140 (with gas). I use them to tack stuff or if I want a weld that will snap/break/grind off easy when I'm mocking stuff up. Got tired of kicking the boxes out of the way and lugging them around. Made a nice little cart on casters with a 4" vice on it. Makes life much easier. Before I finish up this drum tomorrow I'm going to turn an old harbor freight 4" hand grinder into a 7" miter+bevel metal chop saw. That will make life MUCH easier for all of the BS and crap that needs to go into the base of this insulated drum.


Honestly this is really a lot more work than I thought it would be. And probably more work than it'll be worth. It's going to be really nice (in a quirky, rat-rod kind of way), look pretty cool (I like the way it looks, she hates it lol), and it'll cook better than great --but I could have easily picked up an extra 4-6 hour consulting gig and bought myself a Gateway and a Hunsaker. Had I done that I probably would have already been posting about comparison cooks between those two drums and actually eating food, not sucking down welding/grinding fumes. Yes this will be a gateway/hunsaker killer. But at same time if I had to put a value on my time, I couldn't afford my own drum.


That's not an advertisement for the brand names. If you want to build a better (or different) drum it is absolutely possible. It isn't even that expensive --It's just a LOT of friggin work. (to do it right) Craziest part is at this point this damn drum better cook like nobody's business because if it doesn't we can handle fuel management by wrapping a couple welding blankets around brand name drums. This isn't going to be worth the time/effort unless it is something amazing. One of the guys has a 55-gal Gateway. I think I'm going to build a quick & dirty 'no weld' UDS in addition to this thing. I really want to know how this much time/effort stacks up against a brand name cooker.


Only typing out all this rambling nonsense so that if someone else stumbles across this I'd say skip it and buy a brand name drum. Or if you can't swing that much cash just build a no weld UDS and wrap a blanket around it. Dealing with welding an insulated cylinder is a royal pain in the ass. Welding, double-walling and insulating the cylinder is fine --making it LONGER (taller) is a royal f'n pain in the a$$.


If you are crazy enough to try this, just don't. Go buy a brand name drum.

 

[1215]

Is setting a propane tank over a bed of coals enough to make sure you won't explode when cutting/welding it? Hope so. Three down. Four more to go. Small grill tanks. Valves removed but that's it. Didn't do anything to the insides. No rinsing, cleaning, etc. Just let them sit out in the sun/heat/weather for a couple days. They don't stink anymore so I guess good enough.

 

[1215]

Back at building the drum. The reason why I stopped to build the metal chop saw is because of stuff like this:



I think that was her old (Ikea or something) metal book shelf from college. Grind/cut at all the welds and throw them in the fire pit for a few hours makes it easy to remove paint (just quick wire brush). When I heated the drum base (remember this is crimped drum not removable top) to get the oil out (was a synthetic 5W40 blend drum) the bottom warped a little. So now both to strengthen the base to support the weight of the drum, and to straighten out the thin sheet metal it's easier to cut that little square tubing down to make a framework for the inner liner, base supports for wheels/casters and for insulation. I probably have 50-75 small cuts to make out of all that square tube and other metal. MUCH easier with a chop saw. Doing all that with a hand grinder is asking for trouble (or a time consuming pita).

 

[1215]

Mods/Admins: Do you guys have an automerge feature? I feel bad replying to my own build post but it's a LOT easier than editing and saving every time. Not trying to bump my thread up to the top of the UDS builds.

A four letter word has held up progress a bunch this week. (work) Spent today mostly with acetone and a bastard file (not a swear, a bastard file is a cut/grit/grade/type of file. Cut a bunch of metal then just filing edges smooth, fitting it for welding then wiping it down with acetone.

I usually use Lincoln brand solid MIG wire when I can --though now that Miller has bought Hobart I'm interested to see where that goes because Hobart makes halfway decent wire so maybe Miller will add a premium line. For flux core stuff I always use INE brand or as a second, anything made in Italy. Maybe the Italians take shots of lemoncello for breakfast or something. Whatever they do, they make great wire. (flux core) The old Harbor freight stuff used to be made in Italy. Then they started making it in China and it went to shit. Lincoln used to make their flux core wire in Italy too. Then they started making it in USA and now it's not as good. Today I use INE wire (again, flux core). It's awesome. I like it a lot. All personal opinion of course. FYI: New Harbor Freight brand "vulcan" wire is made in Italy again. No 20% coupon for Vulcan brand but same price as INE from Amazon/Prime. New HF wire is still not great but I hate to say it... for the price... Compared to a 1# spool of Lincoln wire... Oh --and it's made in Italy again. (make up your own mind)


Some pics and a lot more to come: I have a pork butt ready for salt waiting for this smoker. Will be done soon.





Started insulating with the mineral wool today too. That stuff is weird. Not sure if I should treat it like fiberglass or if I need a respirator or not while working with it.

Remember a lot of the welds in the pics is her stuff as a total beginner n00b so please go easy. I have thick skin. When I break out the TIG for the outer skin of the drum it'll look terrible. Make fun of those welds all you want but be nice to her stuff.


The white grate is because I didn't measure. I was so focused on that stupid metal chop saw (which is such a f'n awesome tool to own) that I didn't measure. So I gave her that square tubing to weld on the outside of the fire ring... and she welded it on. And now it is too short so I tacked the 1/4" rod from that rack as a spacer for the inner lined wall of the drum.


Weld on the fire ring is her signing her name & date in wire.

 

[1215]

Got the bottom/base inner liner done last night. I stopped because it got late and hit a bit of a roadblock. This is not much different than when people wrap welding blankets around their UDS to insulate them. Except I like the color and logo on an oil drum I found so I decided to take another drum (several others actually), cut it up and make it smaller so I could put a smaller drum inside a regular drum. At the same time I'm insulating it and making it taller.


Hard part is that I want cook surface area so I decided to taper the inner liner. I'll have 2" of mineral wool insulation down by the bottom/firebox but then the liner will taper out to about 3/4" of insulation up at the top/cook grates (so I can cook more than 1/2 rack of ribs at a time).


If you look at the brand name drums, one of them has a metal ring around the fire basket. I have one of those too and I put insulation between that ring and the inner liner of the drum so down at the fire basket it will have 3.5" of mineral wool insulation between that inner ring and the outer drum. So I was going to weld 90-degree steps on the liner for the tapers. I don't want mineral wool exposed to the inside of the drum and I don't want food fat & grease dripping down into the mineral wool. As a result, there will be a series of steps as the inner liner tapers out.


My wonder/question is about cleaning this thing. Do I want those tapers to be on 45's so the grease drips all the way down? Or just do it as 90's and it'll be a pain to clean (if I ever clean it)?

 

[1215]

 

[1215]

Sorry, been a total deadbeat and not updated. Work got crazy then had poison ivy really bad. We think one of the dogs must have got it. One of them sleeps under the sheets with us so yeah... nothing good came of that. We both got it bad right at the belt/waist line. Then it spread north (and south) until we had to go to the doc and get meds. So there was no putting on leathers, respirators or welding masks during that shenanigans.

New Starrett auto center punch (18-C) and DeWalt 60V angle grinder came in the mail today. Even if you don't do crazy metal work that Starrett center punch is awesome. It puts a dimple in the metal so your drill bit doesn't move/walk. Great even for no-weld UDS builds. I should have bought one years ago. The angle grinder was not cheap ($400 all-in). It's a little heavy but reviews online say it's the first cordless angle grinder that can legit replace a corded tool. We'll see in a few hours. She doesn't know yet that I bought it. We'll see about that too...

I'm highly motivated to get the drum done. It's going to be hot as balls this weekend. I'd much rather be sitting inside in the AC with a pork butt on the smoker than out in the garage sweating my ass off welding/finishing the smoker.

 

[pc farmer]

Looking good