>Bluehawg's 120 Gallon Smoker Build

I'm working on a new build. Mixing some of the original design I had in mind with some neat and ingenious ideas I've gotten from here, mainly from Phrasty's builds. Glad I found this site and was directed to his build threads. I was not only impressed but inspired to be more creative in my design and change a few things up.

This is probably going to be slow going because I'm a shop teacher and am using this as a teaching project so I'm having to work at the student's pace. Anyway, I'm going to try to post up some pics as I go along and hope to get some suggestions as I go.

Here's what happened first... Example of what not to do. DIDN'T have my welding shirt buttoned and was using grinder with cut off wheel. Started smelling burning hair/flesh and looked up and asked the boys, "Ya'll smell something burning?" That was when I realized I WAS WHAT WAS BURNING and the flames were making their way up to my face. I started slappin em out and using strong language. Kids got a kick out of it. Used it as a teaching moment. LOL... and now chest is burned a little, ruined TWO shirts, decided it was time to let one of the boys finish the cut for me while I licked my wounds...:mad2: I can attest to the fact that scorching yo titty nipple is not advisable. It was hot and fast at least, not lo and slow...:becky:




Here is one of my boys finishing a cut for me while I slosh cold water on my chest... Bet I won't leave that welding shirt unfastened again. Lesson learned.

Phrasty said:

:heh: Glad you're getting this off the ground now. Nice ahm... Lesson for the kids there with the shirt. Should get a couple pair of work gloves for them as well. Fingers are a good thing to keep around for a while! :wink:

I was gonna message you this morning about the issue I thought you had with all the valves and stuff on the tank. Sometimes I just screw them out and seal the holes with threaded bungs and that takes care of them. I usually flip the tank so that those holes are on the bottom on the smoker. But unless you've already cut them off it doesn't matter much.

I'll be watching this! Good luck.
Cheers.

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Yes, fingers are nice to have around, I just didn't make him wear gloves then because, well frankly I was on fire... No seriously, after trying to use that .040 cutting wheel on that little grinder WITH gloves on, I opted to not use them because I had more control of the machine without and it wanted to jump, buck, and crawl real bad. I sacrificed getting hit with a few sparks on the hand in order to ensure more control. I'm more scared of that thing losing control and that disc fragmenting and shooting em in the eye that I am of the sparks, aside from catching my shirt on fire:becky:...

That is only the 2'd time I've ever caught myself on fire metal working. First time I let some slag fall on my pants leg while I was welding and apparently had some frayed material bout midways up the leg. I could feel the heat and knew I was smoldering (didn't realize it was actually blazing though), however I had a REALLY good bead going and didn't want to stop so I just did the "stinky leg" and "walked it out" until I got that bead finished... Then the fire slappin and cursing was able to commence unfettered.

Pappy said:

When I cut or grind, I like to keep my face off center of the blade, in case it throws a chunk off in my direction.

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That's a good point. Never thought about that. I did set the guard on the grinder so that it would protect the face and direct everything down though. Just happened to be stooped over and was throwing sparks on my chest when I caught ablaze> LOL

BigBobBQ said:

very nice project I can't wait to see the finished cooker at the end and the first batch of Q that comes off of it.

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My mouth is already watering for all sorts of sweet goodness I plan to create on it:hungry:

Old Plumbing Holes Patched.

Haven't had a chance to get a whole lot more done but have managed to cut all the patches and weld them in place where the old plumbing valves were. I used the scrap from the rectangular hole I had cut for the firebox to enter so that the patches would have the same curvature and be made of the same material as the tank. After welding them tight I ground the welds off smooth so the patches would be seamless and after painting won't be evident. Probably spent more time and effort on this step than I should have (should have just cut dang pieces and welded them on and left welds visible) but I guess that is the OCD coming out in me.

I've also marked out and made the top cut of the door and made about 6-8 cut down each side of the door so that I can put hinges and seal on before I finish cutting out door.

Here's a pic of the patches.


Here is a pic that shows where I had cut the plumbing valves out BEFORE patching.



I had cut them out square so they would be easier to cut a patch for. There were a total of four to patch. Don't know if you can tell or not but between the firebox hole and the hole on the far right is one that I had just put the patch in. Had not welded it yet. There is also a TINY one in the left edge of the firebox hole. I think it was like 1" by 5/8" that one was super fun to cut out and clean up :/ Didn't have much to hold on to, too small to put in a vice and dang near had to get a small pair of long nose pliers and man handle it with one hand and use the grinder one armed. It would have probably made for an interesting video if I would have had a third arm to hold the camera.

One note on the patch job, I learned a good lesson in that 6013 rods aren't the absolute best to do the patch jobs on due to their expansion/shrinking as they are welded then cool down. It causes the welds to stress crack. The 6013's don't quite penetrate well enough to take the stress of shrinkage and when I ground off the top of the welds it made it have enough stress to "pop" a hairline crack. Probably wouldn't have been visible in the finished product BUT the OCD kicked in again and I finally just got irratated and used a 6011 rod to repair the last crack and once it cooled I ground it flush and went over it with a 6013 to fill in any undercut I had so it would be a smooth and flush patch.

Learned something new today... I had gotten frustrated with this build because after I had banded the door and got the hinges mounted the bottom of it was not closing up completely and I had wrestled with the thing to make adjustments and the OCD in me kept coming out and I had finally decided that I had somehow moved the hinges forward too much after tacking prior to welding them up and that it had somehow changed the arc radius... Well, I put it off for several days because I was trying to find another way other than cutting the backs of the hinges off and re-positioning them because, well, just because those dang hinges looked good and had some nice killer beads on em. So, I finally succumbed to my inclination that the only thing to do to fix it would be to cut the back half of the hinges off and reposition the door and then reweld the hinges. Once I got the hinges taken apart and removed the back half of them I realized that it WASN'T that the hinges were not positioned correctly but that the daggum arc radius of the door had changed literally, not like heat distortion but like it had evenly "sprung out" of the original arc radius a bit. I've never had this problem before and didn't really know how to fix it because I don't have a BIG slip roller or anything I can put it in to re-curve it so I called up my "expert" buddy...

He confirmed what I suspected about the curve relaxing out and gave me a few suggestions as to how to fix it. What I've come up with that I think will work is to put a smaller diameter pipe inside the door and put ratchet straps across the back of the door and over that pipe and put tension on it. Then I am going to weld the inside of the band and it should cause the arc to draw back in... In theory mind ya. We are going to see.

I should note that the door would have probably worked just fine protruding out at the bottom a little as the inside of the door was nearly touching the outside of the chamber so it was sealed off decent, however, it just looked funny to me and bothered me to the point I had to do something about it.

Never had a problem with a door springing out like that but according to my buddy, every now and then you have one that will. I guess I just got "lucky" huh? LOL.

Seeing that big ol support band on the inside of the tank when I cut it should have been a clue I guess as I'm certain they didn't just put that thing in there because they wanted too. Oh well, it has been a learning experience and I will definitely be more prepared on the next one.

If the above don't work, I guess I have two options:

1. just put it back together and get over it.

2. find someone with a HUGE slip roller and make em some ribs or something and see if they would mind rolling it for me.