Smoker build

THEFERMANATOR

THEFERMANATOR

God
Guess I will put this one here since I aint cookin on it yet. My old smoker is just a small cabinet smoker, and has served me well considering I bought it almost 9 years ago now for $40 at Wal Mart, but the time has come to step up and build me another GOOD smoker. I used to have a 120 gallon tank that was a basic smoker, but it rotted out(was my dads, and then bacame mine). I wanted another decent sized smoker, but not a monster thats big enough to do a whole hog like the last one was. The other kick is I'm on a TIGHT budget right now with some family things going on, so to the scrap pile I go.

My neighbor had an old 120 gallon galvanized water tank that he had to replace because the bottom rotted out on him and no longer held pressure, so I got the base for my build for FREE$$ from him. I have a fair amount of 12 gauge and 16 gauge plate left over from rebuilding my lawnmower deck 2 years ago that I can scab together to make most of my firebox and my reverse flow chamber, some old grating leftover from my rack I built from my travel trailer, a piece of 4" exhaust pipe from my BURB build, a NICE piece of food grade stainless grating from a scrap pile for my cooking grate, and just a bunch of odds and ends from years of building stuff. I will need to pick up some angle iron, but other than that I should have most everything I need.

I didn't take a picture of it before cutting, but this is what I have after cutting it. I cut the bottom off to start so I could see how far I had to go to get to decent metal, and found I was left with a good 36 inches of 24" diamter tank for my cooking chamber.
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You can see the seem was rusted pretty badly as well as a few other spots in the bottom, but the top portion is pretty nice inside with the exception of a spot where the water valve used to go in at.

Heres my grating I will use for the fire box and some other areas. And yes, I have quite a few JEEP parts pictured here.
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And heres some of my scraps as well as a bucnh of old 6.5 parts.
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So hopefully I will be smokin by turkey day to do some smoked turkey and ham.
 
Worked on it for a few hours tonight, doesn't seem like I got much progress done, but I got alot of measurements taken, and figured out most of how I'm going to build it up.

Heres the stainless grate I have for the cooking surface.
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And heres a shot of the reverse flow baffle. I'm adding a little spin to it from most conventional smokers as I'm not going with a completely side mounted firebox, but I'm going to keep it mostly under the smoke chamber so as to minimize heat loss through the firebox to the air. I'm still up in the air about putting a warming chamber on it, or to keep the firebox completely under the smoke chamber.
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Ferm, any danger from the galvanized metal when cooking? I know when you weld galvanized the fumes are particularly harmful, much more so than from welding regular cold rolled or hot rolled steel. Not trying to be a wet blanket. The project looks great, just don't want to see you getting sick. The Zinc bath usually contains lead in it, and welding galvanized produces toxic fumes. You might want to read this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot-dip_galvanization, especially the part about the temp. required to start the coating peeling off.
 
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I'd take the wet blanket over poisoning there Destroyer. Just saying, better safe than sorry.
Ferman. I have two new, albeit a little rusty, sticks of 3/16" steel. 1.5" flat and 1.5" angle and I have a generous ammount of King Starboard for those side tables/cutting board. A friend just recently built a cooking trailer for a side job, he did it here at the shop so every piece of scrap they had is also here. I know you could use some of it..
 
I've read about the galvanized and cooking before, but in all honesty I grew up eating whole hogs and such out of a nearly identical smoker with no problems. Some say that it takes 750 degrees for the zinc coating to gas, and others say it can gas at 500, but in reality I will most likely never get it that hot. The hot portion will be the firebox, and it will be all steel. I'm going to take a grinder to the inside of it and get most all of the scale and such off before I close it up, but after years of being used as a water tank there wasn't much coating left inside of it. It didn't have hardly any of the gassing or the white flaking off when I welded the inside of it, just alot of spatter from the surface rust. The outside of it on the other hand has the white flake off and the funny colored gassing when I weld to it. I know my uncle used to build smokers on the side for people, and he used nothing but old galvanized water tanks for his builds when he did them.
 
Destroyer said:
Ferm, any danger from the galvanized metal when cooking? I know when you weld galvanized the fumes are particularly harmful, much more so than from welding regular cold rolled or hot rolled steel. Not trying to be a wet blanket. The project looks great, just don't want to see you getting sick. The Zinc bath usually contains lead in it, and welding galvanized produces toxic fumes. You might want to read this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot-dip_galvanization, especially the part about the temp. required to start the coating peeling off.
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Well you got me to thinking on this one. I wasn't worried about the galvanized danger as I grew up eating out of one, but I guess as I've gotten older I'm more paranoid and I have decided to abandon the galvanized tank. So I went to digging and thinking(ridge probably seen the smoke from his place), and I remembered my neighbor had an old 80 gallon 2 stage air compressor pump and tank without a motor on it. Went over and asked him how much he wanted for it, and he said free when he found out I would be using it to build a smoker. SO I scored a heavy wall 24" diameter 80 gallon tank with a little over 36 inches of good area to cook on for free. SO I lose a days worth of work, but my designs for it will stil lwork since it is the same diamter tank. So no more worry about the galvanized tank problem, and it will be made of a heavier wall tank.
 
THEFERMANATOR said:
Well you got me to thinking on this one. I wasn't worried about the galvanized danger as I grew up eating out of one, but I guess as I've gotten older I'm more paranoid and I have decided to abandon the galvanized tank. So I went to digging and thinking(ridge probably seen the smoke from his place), and I remembered my neighbor had an old 80 gallon 2 stage air compressor pump and tank without a motor on it. Went over and asked him how much he wanted for it, and he said free when he found out I would be using it to build a smoker. SO I scored a heavy wall 24" diameter 80 gallon tank with a little over 36 inches of good area to cook on for free. SO I lose a days worth of work, but my designs for it will stil lwork since it is the same diamter tank. So no more worry about the galvanized tank problem, and it will be made of a heavier wall tank.
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And I'll be down for some pulled pork BBQ when she's up and running. :drool: I think you made a wise choice Ferm. Sorry about the wet blanket, and the loss of time, but we all want to be talking TO you, not ABOUT you. When I read about the Galvanized coating starting to flake off @ 389 deg. and the fact that it might contain lead I just had to say something. Lead ain't so good for that young'un you got, and I'm sure it's not so good for you and the missus either. I'll bring the beer. :beer:
 
one of these days I'm gonna build a grill....... thinkin about copying an engine block/heads and bolting on headers, valve intake, etc.... I know you can buy one already made from stamped sheet metal but where's the fun in that.....

Keep burning wire/rod Ferm.... Good call on the tank and BONUS that heavy wall should last longer and regulate heat better too
 
Heres the new victim. It's an old challenger 80 gallon air tank rated to 200 PSI, and it is over twice as thick as the water tank was. This thing is HEAVY.
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And here it is cleaned up with all of the holes welded up.
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I have it taped off for the marks to cut the opening, but cutting it won't be anywhere near as easy as cutting the other tank. This thing has to be 10 or 11 gauge steel. Since it is already REALLY close to the 36" cooking surface I was shooting for, I'm going to leave both ends on it and do all the work through the opening. So it actually makes for a little less work in the end. Just gonna take me some time to cut out the door opening as I don't want to chance distorting it using the plasma cutter, so gonna take some time with a sawzall. The best part is I'm still sitting at $0 as the new tank was a freebie from my neighbor.
 
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Friend of mine built one out of an old compressor tank. Buy ahead and buy the bulk pack of blades. LOL

Turned out great when he was done.
 
bradford said:
Friend of mine built one out of an old compressor tank. Buy ahead and buy the bulk pack of blades. LOL

Turned out great when he was done.
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Blades? I don't need no stinkin blades, me's gots a plasma cutter to use. No pics, but no turning back now. I cut the opening in the tank for the lid today, pressure washed and cleaned it out as best I could, and welded the reverse flow baffle into the bottom of it. Now I gotta get more welding wire, angle iron, and maybe another piece of plate to finsh up the firebox.
 
Ding Ding Ding Ding! Looks like a trip to Lakeland is in the works for you.. I got some steel like I said. Let me get an inventory of what is out there and I will get back to you..
 
RidgeRunner said:
Ding Ding Ding Ding! Looks like a trip to Lakeland is in the works for you.. I got some steel like I said. Let me get an inventory of what is out there and I will get back to you..
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OOPS, I already went and bought steel today. Got 60 feet of 1" angle iron, 20 feet 2" angle iron, 24 feet 1" square tubing, 31" 4" pipe, and 2 sheets of 1/4 scrap plate they had. I didn't need a full sheet, so I told him I wanted a 5' X 6' foot piece they had that was used. It was $150 for a piece of SCRAP plate. The guy loading the stuff helped me out though, and threw another piece up there even bigger along with it. So it looks liek I might be looking for another tank and building another smoker after this one. Figured since I have a GOOD THICK wall tank, I might as well make the rest of it as heavy or heavier and have a high quality smoker when done.
 
:beer:LOL! Well OK, I didn't have any 1/4"plate anyways..
When I took an inventory I found mostly 1/8" thick, that is what they used for the frames on the removable cooking shelves... I am looking for a picture of this smoker they built. It was involved.. It is now mounted on a cook trailer and the guy is going around selling Q..

1/8" x1" flat x 8'
x1" angle x 25'
x1" sq tubing x 6'
expanded metal 2'x4' maybe
plate 15" x 36"

3/16" diamond plate 3'x4'
x2" flat x10'
plate 4.75"x6'
plate 4'x10' ? several large pieces are buried under a ton of crap out back, done so to keep from having to move everything to mow..
2" angle x 28'
3" channelx 25'

PS I just thought we were busy with Melissa and the soccer schedule, add to the mix volleyball with practice two nights a week and one night for games..Holy cow, I am gonna sell all my tools cause at this rate I will never get another project started nor finished..
:beer:
 
RidgeRunner said:
:beer:LOL! Well OK, I didn't have any 1/4"plate anyways..
When I took an inventory I found mostly 1/8" thick, that is what they used for the frames on the removable cooking shelves... I am looking for a picture of this smoker they built. It was involved.. It is now mounted on a cook trailer and the guy is going around selling Q..

1/8" x1" flat x 8'
x1" angle x 25'
x1" sq tubing x 6'
expanded metal 2'x4' maybe
plate 15" x 36"

3/16" diamond plate 3'x4'
x2" flat x10'
plate 4.75"x6'
plate 4'x10' ? several large pieces are buried under a ton of crap out back, done so to keep from having to move everything to mow..
2" angle x 28'
3" channelx 25'

PS I just thought we were busy with Melissa and the soccer schedule, add to the mix volleyball with practice two nights a week and one night for games..Holy cow, I am gonna sell all my tools cause at this rate I will never get another project started nor finished..
:beer:
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finish a project? what a strange foreign concept:you:
 
RidgeRunner said:
View attachment 5819

Fire box on the bottom, four holes for indirect heat, drainpans, fairly well configured but not a tested design...
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That design is pretty good for conserving wood as you don't get much heat loss. They all have there pros and cons from what I can find out. Been using alot of info fro mthis site http://www.smokerbuilder.com/ , has a calculator to punch in sizes and dimensions to tell you the required firebox size, chimney size and length, air inlets, and the rest. Heres another http://www.feldoncentral.com/bbqcalculator.html .
 
Foreign, strange and novel an idea as "finishing a project" may sound to some--- :nut:I did finish the refit on that skiff. AND In my defense I have been sicker than any dog I ever had, SO I really don't know where to stop, just opened another can-o-worms with a bathroom remodel... Which I intend to FINISH before X-mas so help me.. If I ration my time better: 12 hours a day Ridge- 3 hours Melissa - 5 hours Rest - 1 hour SSS - 1 hour to eat and prepare meals, LOL what does that leave me? Good couple hours a day, unfortunately none during daylight hours, LOL! PLUS Weekends are mine for the taking..
 
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