New Braunfels Resto - Stripping inside of grill

A

Aaren Cobb

Guest
I found a New Braunfels on CL for $40! From what I've seen that is a sweet deal, but it does have some rust. It's either a Silver for Black Diamond, I don't know how to tell the difference but it has the pot warmer on top of the firebox.

I've got it in pieces now to sand down the rust and repaint the outside, and I'm wondering how stripped down i should get the inside? Should I strip it down to bare steal? There is a lot of ash, rust and soot, but I'm unsure how much to strip away.

Thanks in advance.
 
My old NB Silver did not have the pot warmer on top of the firebox so I'm thinking you got the BD.
I would scrape it clean and then re-season liberally.
Good luck, try and post some before and after pron if you can.
 
A handy tool to get is a Plastic paint/wallpaper scraper. This will do well to remove all of the gunk and what not without scratching down to the surface metal. From there you can assess your next move. If there is no apparent rust on the inside, you can clean it out and re-season it.
 
Thanks for the advice so far. This is my first smoker so I don't know what the inside should look like on a new or well maintained one. I'll try to not scrape through to bare metal.

The first pic is the only one of the inside that i have right now. I'll take some more tomorrow:

DSC04506.jpg


Under the grill:
DSC04494.jpg


DSC04503.jpg


DSC04500.jpg


I've got it standing up straight now, although I did appreciate the character of its "lean." I had to tighten a few bolts on the legs.

I am currently removing rust and repainting with high heat 1200 degree Rustoleum paint, and I plan on hiring a welder to reattach the firebox with a good seal.

Any other suggestions?
 
Maybe a fire box heat baffle or 2 tuning plates might be a nice addition. Other than that it looks like it will fix up well. Nice find! :thumb: Only other suggestion is if your using that grill brush to clean it up its not going to do the best of jobs. That rust underneath is not serious, but your gonna want to go rent an 4.5" angle grinder for a day (if you don't have one) with a wire-brush attachment (you might have to purchase that along with safety glasses, a couple dust masks and a pair of work gloves) and give it a little elbow grease and you'll have a perfect surface to re-paint. You will not want to paint over any rust at all, you want to take it ALL off.

If your willing to do that, she'll be as good as new. :thumb:

Good luck with the project... Show us some shots when its all fixed up!

Cheers
 
Wow! Good eye, I had to go back up and see what brush you were talking about!

That is a cheapy steel wire brush I started to use and realized it wasn't going to do a thing against the build up that was in there.

Thanks for the tip on the steel wire attachment for a grinder, I'll pick one up today.

I also bought some rust converter, but I'll definitely be taking all the rust off first and spraying that on as an extra precaution before I apply the high heat paint.

So has anyone else taken one of these with the bolted on firebox and had it welded on? Can I just have a welder run a bead around where the firebox attaches to the grill?
 
weld the legs just like that in place! I love it!

I wish I had my old one back... all the research I did and all the mods and time wasted trying to get these puppies to stay down in the 225 range when all the while they are designed perfectly to put along at the 250-300 range... which makes stellar old school and traditional BBQ briskets and ribs on the low end of hot and fast. I just didn't realize what the little pit was trying to tell me.. hot and fast! LOL

I agree with the wire brush. I might do that today on my meat mama which has not cooked anything in quite some time.
 
FYI, if you do not have an angle grinder you can get wire wheel attachment for a drill. Just dont try to use a cordless drill as the battery will be dead in no time.
 
But if I weld the legs on with that lean, won't the smoke come out crooked too? :crazy:

I have an angle grinder, but Home Depot and Lowes don't have a steel wheel to fit it so I bought one for my drill. It's the plug-in kind so no recharging batteries.

I've already painted the shelf brackets and the firebox door and they came out really well. Firebox is next on the list for early this week.
 
Aaren Cobb said:
But if I weld the legs on with that lean, won't the smoke come out crooked too? :crazy:

I have an angle grinder, but Home Depot and Lowes don't have a steel wheel to fit it so I bought one for my drill. It's the plug-in kind so no recharging batteries.

I've already painted the shelf brackets and the firebox door and they came out really well. Firebox is next on the list for early this week.
Click to expand...

Hey again Aaren, Just being honest here when I say if you tighten those bolts properly, welding that seam is not going to be much of a performance improvement. Personally I'd leave it bolted. Just get some locknuts (not the kind with the plastic "gripper" though for obvious reasons.) Having the option to remove the FB to clean and do maintenance is a good thing. If you already have the welder guy coming over to do some work... deal with the legs instead... I think steady legs (and smoker) would make more of an improvement that the welded FB over the bolted FB. Again, just my 2¢. Just get her cleaned up nice and give her a nice spray job.

Btw Can you post up a shot of what the FB looks like inside?

Cheers

Cheers
 
Okay, thanks for the advice on welding the firebox. Before I disassembled it, I could see daylight between the firebox and grill where it bolted on, should I run some fire rope or oven insulation silicon (or whatever it is) around the outside to seal that off?

I don't have the welder yet, that's stage 2 for this project and should happen in a few weeks for the legs. I also saw some brackets that are on the "Oklahoma Joe" that aren't on mine that I might try to find and use to add stability.
 
here's an update, I got the firebox sanded/grinded down with steel wire brush and primered with rust converter.

Before:
DSC04500.jpg


Sanded/Grinded:
DSC04520.jpg


Primered:
DSC04523.jpg

DSC04524.jpg
 
Looks great so far :thumb:
She's going to have a good new home fo sho

Paul
 
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