Well, the damn weather still isn't cooperating. Every time I tried to go work on the tank it's either raining or too hot and muggy to comfortably wear my safety gear.
So I decided to drag all my tools and junk into the basement and start work on the fire drum, err box.
Smoke transfer tube opening laid out.
And cut out.
I found a bed frame at the scrap yard to use for the rails. First I have to remove the rivets from the hinged cross members.
I ground off one end of the rivet with the angle grinder and popped it out with the welding hammer.
I cut the rails to length, or rather I tried to. I don't know what bed frames are made of, but it ruined 3 metal cutting blades.
I eventually put a cut off disk on my angle grinder and that seemed to work much better.
I laid out the hole in the drum lid for the basket to slide thru.
And cut it out with the jig saw. Then I cut 2 pieces of 1.5 x 1/8 flat steel and bent the ends to support the end of the rails.
Here's everything mocked-up.
I need to tweek the length of the support bars so that the rails sit out further toward the edges.
I'm going to bring home some pallets from work tomorrow and burn out the liner over the weekend (hopefully). Once I clean out the ashes, I'm going to start welding it together.
I have 2 pieces of sheet steel- I'm planning to use the bigger one to fabricate the smoke transfer tube and the smaller one to make the front of the pull-out basket.
I also think I'm going to get some small angle iron to reinforce and square up the drum lid so it seals better and is more sturdy.
I'll post more pics when I get more done, but don't hold your breath! At this rate, the rig will be ready to fire up just in time for my funeral.
Thanks for looking!