Rodney
Full Fledged Farker
Yay... it's another "I built a UDS" thread... ;-)
I finally quit planning and started building, and got it done today. Here are some pics: (WOW... they're huge... sorry about that!)
The new unlined drum. The lid was pressed by the drum dealer the day before I bought it, and they left the gasket out for me and didn't put paint on it, which is good for me!
The charcoal basket. This was actually really fun to make... I got to dust off the welder, use my air-powered abrasive cutoff saw, etc... The mesh is 9-gauge 3/4" size. How did I bend it? I took a video of me doing it, and will update this caption with a link after I put it on YouTube.
A view inside the UDS
I mounted the turkey thermometer in a drilled-out 1/4-NPT pipe plug in the side of the drum. It simply slides out when I need to remove the charcoal basket.
Inside the drum, also showing the "wiggle rod" that I made from 3/16" zinc-plated rod. I welded it up by the handle too... I felt like such a rebel. ;-) I held my breath, don't worry...
Completed UDS. I still need to buy handles (Home Depot didn't have any stainless ones), and I actually painted the lid after I took this photo, so it's black now. I have a 6" long 2" pipe nipple to attach to the 2" bung hole (insert Beavis and Butthead laughing here). As for the inlets, even though people usually distribute them 120 degrees apart, I can't see a good reason for this. I figure that if a single 2" inlet works well, three inlets 45 degrees apart should work fine too. I plan on mounting the UDS to a side table structure, so I don't want to have to go behind it to play with inlet caps.
Gonna probably season it tomorrow!
-Rodney
I finally quit planning and started building, and got it done today. Here are some pics: (WOW... they're huge... sorry about that!)
The new unlined drum. The lid was pressed by the drum dealer the day before I bought it, and they left the gasket out for me and didn't put paint on it, which is good for me!
The charcoal basket. This was actually really fun to make... I got to dust off the welder, use my air-powered abrasive cutoff saw, etc... The mesh is 9-gauge 3/4" size. How did I bend it? I took a video of me doing it, and will update this caption with a link after I put it on YouTube.
A view inside the UDS
I mounted the turkey thermometer in a drilled-out 1/4-NPT pipe plug in the side of the drum. It simply slides out when I need to remove the charcoal basket.
Inside the drum, also showing the "wiggle rod" that I made from 3/16" zinc-plated rod. I welded it up by the handle too... I felt like such a rebel. ;-) I held my breath, don't worry...
Completed UDS. I still need to buy handles (Home Depot didn't have any stainless ones), and I actually painted the lid after I took this photo, so it's black now. I have a 6" long 2" pipe nipple to attach to the 2" bung hole (insert Beavis and Butthead laughing here). As for the inlets, even though people usually distribute them 120 degrees apart, I can't see a good reason for this. I figure that if a single 2" inlet works well, three inlets 45 degrees apart should work fine too. I plan on mounting the UDS to a side table structure, so I don't want to have to go behind it to play with inlet caps.
Gonna probably season it tomorrow!
-Rodney