RF plate Question

[hunter791349]

I am turning my old New Braunfels smoker into a RF smoker. I am trying to get my materials together and need to know how thick of steel do I need for the RF plate? The smoke chamber is 35" long and 16.5" dia. it has a 3"dia. smoke stack on it, is 3" what I need to stick with or does it need to be larger pipe?

I am so pumped for this project lol. Have had this thing for a long time and always hated the way it performed, glade I found this site.

Thanks,

James

 

[jonnyrod]

I have the same unit and you are right, it's pretty well built but needs some mods to make it work right. The firebox to cook chamber is almost twice the size it needs to be and the firebox air inlet is a little too small also. The stack is a couple inches too short as well. I would think you could get away with some 1/8th or 3/16th plate for your baffle. The 16' diameter doesn't leave much room to play with. I mostly use mine for grilling with a drop in grate I made one afternoon drinking beer.

Here is a link to a calculator, plug your #s in and you will be in business. http://webpages.charter.net/tomchism/Dodis Calculator/DODIS' BBQ Smoker ratio form .xls  

Here is the drop in grill, works great with that unit.

 

[hunter791349]

I had been trying to use the calculator but my computer was not opening it. Ask my wife about it and she open on hers that has windows office on it lol. Now I need to hunt down some steel.

Thanks,

James

 

[tom37]

Try this link and see if it works for ya.

http://webpages.charter.net/tomchism/BBQ CALC Forms/BBQ Smoker Calculators.htm

Not sure if it will work any different but its worth a shot.

If not then post the numbers, smoke chamber and firebox dia and length, round or square FB and the opening size's like the air inlet and the opening from the fb to the cook chamber.

One of us will gladly run the numbers for ya.

 

[hunter791349]

Thanks Tom. I was able to use the first one with my wife's help from her lap top.

It is showing that the fire box is way over sized, is this going to cause probles?  volume required is 2493 cu. in. and my fire box is 3633 cu. in.

Thanks,

James

 

[jonnyrod]

The firebox is okay, I have the same unit and at least it isn't too small. Work on the inlet and outlet as well as that top door. You need a good seal on the top door, the way they are designed causes them to warp from all the heat and they don't shut too well. I still need to fix mine, for now I just set an old 4-speed flywheel on it for weight and go. I just did half a 80lb hog on mine a couple weeks ago.

 

[hunter791349]

Are you talking about the top door on the fire box? I was thinking about welding it to the fire box completely sealing it shut. Going to take a couple pictures tonight of what it looks like now and start documenting the changes.

Thanks,

James

 

[jonnyrod]

Yes I was talking about the top door, I was gonna look at getting some draw tight latches to seal it up as opposed to welding it shut. I kinda like the top door for adding large splits but that's just me.

http://www.toggleclamps.biz/latch-action-toggle-clamps.html

 

[tom37]

The calc turns out numbers that are a minimum. No prob going bigger since you can always damper it down.