Why dont one of you machinest welder types...

[williamzanzinger]

Start an internet company where you sell complete modification kits for all the basic smoker types, especcially offsets. Some of us impatient city folks would eat that crap up. Baffles, tuning plates, chimney extenders, charcoal baskets, reverse flow kits, the odd pieces of steel needed to plug holes. cmon, the world is waiting.

 

[acemakr]

Great idea - better yet, how about the manufacturers incorporate some of the better mods in their manufacturing process?

 

[nwdave]

Nah, I like the original idea better, because we'd be supporting a brother or sister smoker who really knew what's what.

 

[dirt guy]

They would have to be doing it out of the goodness of their heart. You wouldn't be able to recoup your time and effort in setting up and fabricating for every different smoker on the market. There would have to be a LOT of research in finding what would optimally work.

Over the last six or seven years, I've been making stands to put game cameras on. (Sometimes a hunter wants to put one where there isn't a tree.) Virtually every year something has changed and I have had to revamp the mounting plate for the new design.

I would have nearly $40 in a stand counting materials and my time @ $10 per hour. That didn't count the cost of my shop, welding equipment or utilities. Many would scream and holler if I asked for more than $50. (I started out asking $70.) Most still walked away when I asked $50. Well, $10 per unit wasn't worth the time away from my wife and family.

 

[nwdave]

You are absolutely correct. Unfortunately, there are a lot of cheapskates out there. Many don't realize how expensive your time, let alone materials, is worth. Your time alone is worth how much your hourly wage or salary is. To say less, is to cheapen your value.

 

[bbq engineer]

You would never be able to recoup your investment, and to make accessories for all of the different brands, you would need to tool up for each one if it were to fit right...and about the time you had your products ready, the manufacturer would change their design or footprint, and then it's back to the drawing board. If I were going to market to the public, it would be something that I had design control over.

Not to mention that about the time you got up and running some bozo would F something up themselves and then blame you to the tune of a law suit. Manufacturing is a tricky game...in this case, it would be better if the OEMs adopted a design that worked in the first place.

Other options might be:

1. You could take a shop class and get the skills to mod your own smoker.
2. If it is something small, talk to your local high school shop teacher, it might make a good project for some energetic young metal shop student.

Good luck!

 

[dirt guy]

>>Not to mention that about the time you got up and running some bozo
>>would F something up themselves and then blame you

My grandfather built a tool to remove sections from sickle bars. After the sickle sections were removed, you would turn the tool over and it would rivet the new sections on. It had an adjustment to allow for the varying thicknesses of the sickle sections and sickle bars.

One gentleman he sold the tool to brought it back for replacement two different times. The first time he had bent the handle, the second time he brought it back claiming the tool had bent the sickle bar (actually, bowed the bar to where it would not slide in the header guides).

Grandad went and looked at the man's sickle bar. The rivets had been crushed so hard, they had little rings pressed off of the edges of the head. It made the rivet head look like it had a flat washer under it. He gave the man his money back and told him the tool must not work with that particular bar.

Upon dissassembly, we discovered that the rollers of the bearing had made indentions in the tempered race they ran on. Later, a friend of the farmer said he had watched the man adjust the tool to where he could just barely fit the rivet into the tool. He then would stand on the lever of the tool to make sure the rivet was "tight".

Grandad decided he wasn't cut out for the manufacturing world soon after that. He stuck with farming and running a few head of cattle.

 

[meateater]

Personally, I like the creative nature of this site. That's why I built a UDS.

 

[tjohnson]

"Self Engineering" is a wonderful thing!!!

It's a great feeling to figure something out and actually make the finished product work as planned. That said, most people do not have clue as to the time and expense to make accessories for a smoker or any custom project.

My local welding shop charges $90/hr and they have a minimum 1 hour charge for anything. We used to have a few retired guys with shops for cheap welding/fab work, but they've either died off, or the county has shut them down.


Todd

 

[ddave]

If you're making custom stuff in your shop and only charging $10 an hour for your time, I'd say you're pretty darn generous.

I can't weld but I have friends that can.

And there's a couple of good fab shops close by. None of the mods I did to my SnP involve welding. I dld have a friend do some cutting for me though.

Having a high school shop class do it is an excellent idea as well.

Dave