Smoker build
 

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.
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...psbfd279af.jpg
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps85086f89.jpg
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.
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps4c10e6cf.jpg

And heres some of my scraps as well as a bucnh of old 6.5 parts.
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...psc2bde205.jpg
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...pseeb0c4bd.jpg

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.
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps4df839f3.jpg

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.
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps063e8138.jpg
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...psfd5deac2.jpg

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.

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.

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.

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:

Good call.

Ferm that's gonna be a bad boy when you're done!

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.
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...pse5d9c997.jpg

And here it is cleaned up with all of the holes welded up.
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...psb657c2f7.jpg

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.