MINI WSM "Geaux Tigers"

[peavley]

After doing a little research I  decided to go ahead and build a mini.  I received a lot of help from this forum and: http://bbqbros.net/

and a friend of mine helped me with making the stencils.

·          I used Dupli Color (brand), Metalcast (type) paint.  Purple, Gold, and Silver ( I had to paint silver under the purple, on top of the gold because this paint is very translucent and if I went with just purple on top of the gold it came out exactly like Mississippi State colors…and I could not have that).  This paint is supposed to give shiny metals an anodized effect, and rated for 500 deg.

·          I should have taken pictures, but I kind of did the stencil backwards…for the LSU, it was easy.  I cut out LSU on a manila folder and taped it to the pot, then right on the inside of the edge of the manila folder I masked with one strip of 1/8” tape for the outline for LSU.  Now the Tigers was a little tricky because of the curves.  What I ended up doing was laying a square matt of blue painters tape on the slick side of wax paper large enough for the Tigers portion of the logo.  Then I put a print out of the logo on top of the blue tape and cut out with an exacto knife all the way thru the wax paper.  Basically I made my own sticker, then when ready peeled the wax paper off the back and placed it on top of the LSU after the pot was painted gold of course.

I am not sure how it is going to cook.  I will let yall know after I try it.

 

[whtplainssmoker]

Looks fantastic!  What a great tailgate smoker. 

 

[jrod62]

Great job. Thumbs Up

 

[smokinhusker]

Very nice!

 

[JckDanls 07]

well... it certainly looks good... how does she perform ?

 

[shoneyboy]

 

[peavley]

This thing cooks great BBQ.  The purple has become a little darker with the heat, but it is still ok.  I have found that I have to baby it a little more than I thought...what I mean is that it will start to drop in temp (200-190) after a few hours, but it still has plenty of coals left so what I have to do is move the pot off of the base and stir up the coals a bit to knock some of the ashes off of them, then it comes back up to temp (225-245)  One batch of coals has lasted 6.5 - 7.5 hours on average, so I am very pleased so far because one batch of coals is barely 1/4 bag of kingsford blue.  Since this build I have made a few more, see pics below.

1003914.JPG

• peavley
• Aug 6, 2012

1003916.JPG

• peavley
• Aug 6, 2012

EGA&LSU2.JPG

• peavley
• Aug 6, 2012

1003920.JPG

• peavley
• Aug 6, 2012

As you can see I also added the Eagle Globe and Anchor to the back of mine as well.  I just used the other half of the stencil from the black and silver one that I made, which was for the father-in-law.  The lsu logo with sportsman paradise on the back was for a friend of mine.

 

[rowdyrawhide]

Looks Great!  Getting ready to start mine.

Did you remove the vent covers and legs to paint them or did you just mask of the area around them?  If you did remove the vents how did you reattach them?

Thanks

Aaron

 

[peavley]

I removed the handle, legs, side/bottom vents and the bar that holds the lid in place.  The top vent could not be removed so I used thin pieces of plastic to slide under the vent between the vent and the black enamel lid.  Those pieces of plastic stuck out about 1/2" from the edge of the vent, then I masked the rest of the lid off with blue painters tape.  I tried sliding paper under the vent, but it was too tight of a fit...what I ended up using was plasic nacho trays that I had left over from a birthday party.  I cut out the bottoms of about 6 or 7 of them and slid them in as far as they would go.

The top vent has changed a bit in color from the heat and smoke, and so has the handle, but it still looks good...just used.

Good luck with yours.

 

[s2k9k]

Those are some Awesome looking Mini's!!! That is some Great craftsmanship! You must have a lot of patience to make those stencils! I am very impressed. 

I'm getting ready to build myself one but will probably just be black but you sure got the wheels spinning on what I could do!

 

[peavley]

Thanks for the replies yall,

In case you were wanting more information on building the stencils here are a few pics of the process

Start off with wax paper slick side up.  Then layer blue masking tape (horizontal and verticle) to form a mat.

EGAStencil1.JPG

• peavley
• Aug 22, 2012

Then tape your print out on top of the mat and cut it out with a very sharp exacto knife.

EGAStencil.JPG

• peavley
• Aug 22, 2012

With the stencil above, I used both of these for two different stencils.  I used the cut out for the black and silver mini and I used the left over mat and added an EGA to my mini on the back as seen above.

Let me know if yall have any questions.

 

[scarbelly]

Awesome work and great tutorial on the stencils 

 

[hughart]

I bet them things would smoke a nice rack of elephant or gator! 

Geaux Tigers