New build, new build toy w/pic's
 

Started life as an air bladder type water well tank, 26 inches in diameter, about 4 feet tall (not counting the built in base) - about 120 gallons. That's my son Kyle, primary builder and prospective owner.
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Laid out a vertical stick burner design & started cutting.
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Very strange tank. Thin wall and its actually a tank in a tank. Imagine a 26 inch diameter 2-1/2 ft tank with another 1-1/2 ft extension welded on top. Made for some challenging cutting but we got it done.
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And cleaned it up with grinders & sanders. Saved the original 1-1/4 inch plumbing fixture at the bottom of the tank to use as a drain.
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The thin wall steel was a challenge, the doors lost their radius as soon as they were cut. But we found a really neat tool that was up to the challenge. This is a tubing bender from Harbor Freight shown experimenting with the angle iron die.
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Put in the correct 1/2 inch square tubing dies and bent the 1/2 inch square tubing to the correct radius (26 inches), reformed the doors to the 1/2 square tubing and welded it up. Worked perfect. Added an air intake and some latches (thanks BBQ Bandit). Note the single 4 inch air intake added at the bottom, it just opens into the center of the tank directly below the fire grate. Added a damper a little later in the build. Really simple and very effective air inlet control!
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Also used the tubing bender to fabricate some really neat grill grates that match the tank radius front and back. For reference, the cooking grates are like having 3 Weber 26.75 grill grates in the thing - lots of cooking real estate on a really small footprint. Can't see them but we also adding in some 1/2 inch steel rods to be able to hang meat.
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Added a heat deflector - 5/16 steel plate w/ 2 inch radius cut front and back.
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And a firebox grate.
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Washed it down, painted the exterior, slathered peanut oil on the inside and fired it up for a burn-in. Came up to temp very quickly, ran it up to 470*-500* for an hour or so, played with draft and fire control for a few hours.
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From the test burn, we can tell this thing is gonna cook great, If anything we will need to work with smaller fires, but managing in the 250*-350* range is pretty easy. Once we had a coal bed, a couple of splits threw off some nasty smoke for 5 minutes then went to clear blue for a couple hours. Final shot, going to be cooking something this weekend.
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Thanks for looking.

Very cool. The thought that went into the layout and the build quality look top notch. :thumb: I bet between the height of the camber and the height of the chimney, you're getting pretty good draft through it.

Really cool looking cooker. You'll be able to get a lot of meat on there.

Matt

Nice workmanship on your build. That ought to do a great job.

That is absolutely killer.

That looks great. You guys have mad skills, well designed.

excellent Dave!

I have one of those tanks in my well pit at my cabin

every time I go down there to turn my water on I give it the eye LOL

Nice build!

Yip. It's official. You're cool. That's awesome.

Wow, and to think I wanted to buy something, I might have to find some tools to barrow and see what I can fabricate :)

LOVE IT!. thats awesome. is it charcoal based and then the splits go on top? or do you just light the splits?

thanks

That is a slick looking cooker you've got there!

That's awesome. I wish I had that kind of skill or ambition. Nicely done. :thumb:

That is some serious talent! Well done!

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!GREAT GREAT work!!