I wanted to show everyone my new lid setup. I wanted to be able to run 2 grill racks, so with a lot of digging around here, and some help from a few members (thanks for the info Barbarian), here's what I did:
I had a few other barrels that I had planned on using to make a big baby double barrel smoker with. I canned (lol) that idea after reading this thread on the UDS. I cut around the drum with a cut off wheel, 7" from the top on a closed head drum. I was going to cut the center out of a spare top from another drum, after cutting it out I was going to weld the the "ring" I had left to the top I had cut off the drum. While I was checking for fit before welding, I turned the "ring" upside down and set it on the top of my UDS, then put the new lid on, perfect airtight fit. When I originally cut the center out of the top, I was really after just getting the outer most ring or lip from it, in order to make a good seal on the UDS. Flipping it upside down worked out better than I could have imagined. Here's a few pic's:
It's kind of hard to see the new ring on there
From a different angle:
Lid all finished:
And the final result:
I used it for the first time yesterday with the new lid. Temps where much easier to control. My old lid had 8 1/2" holes drilled around it, but I thnk when I used the weed burner to take the paint off, it warped the lid so bad I wasn't getting a good seal. This new setup is perfect. The lid fits nice and snug around the new lip.
