Franklinstein's Monster

Bacchus2b said:

Why bother painting it? The crusty look adds character!

Click to expand...

It’s going to have A lot of exposure to the elements and I want it to last

While I haven't gotten the monster blasted or painted yet, there were a few things to take care of. On Saturday I built a platform even with the trailer height for me to stand on while tending the pit.


It's big enough that I thought about mounting a pole in the middle, but nobody wants to see my moves.

I then cleaned the pit out burned everything good with the weed burner, hit it with simple green and pressure washed. I then got after the inside of the cook chamber with a putty knife and scraped away the very thick layer of dried drippings coating everything.

I built a fire to dry it out, and once it was dry sprayed the inside with pam and cranked the heat a bit. Between the 6" diameter stack and the "collector" that covers pretty much the entire width of the pit, this thing draws really well. It also holds temp a whole lot better than I am used to. Early on the stack end runs about 25 degrees hotter than the firebox end, but once it gets really warmed up temps are with 10 - 15 degrees across the grate, the hot spot being right over the end of the baffle.

This morning I got up at 5 and built a fire,



got a butt in the pit at 6:30. It's coming along well.



About a hour ago a good little shower came but the pit didn't lose a whole lot of heat.


I like having this much metal. More to come.

EDIT....Not sure why pictures aren't showing up.....Edited again - figured it out...old man on the internet syndrome

Czarbecue said:

Nice.. all that for under a grand! Is that a 250 gallon?

Click to expand...

Closer to 210, it's kind of an odd size but works for me, the grate is 52x31, so with that much width I should be able to do a whole pig.

Foiled the butt about 8 hours in

,
while it finished cooking I lit my Weber and roasted some Hatch chiles


pulled it off the pit at about 9 1/2 hours, rested and pulled.


Added a little finishing sauce and slaw and the sammies were awesome

The pit sat at the sandblaster's for almost 2 weeks. He had a lot of work, and we kept getting rain. He was finally able to get it blasted on Friday



I picked it up and brought it home on my lunch break. When I got home from work Friday evening I blew it off, wiped it down with alcohol and gave it 2 good coats of Rustoleum High Heat brush on. The second coat went on particularly thick.

While it looked good in basic black, it needed a little something more



So I got busy being a little artistic


Once I burn it in to cure the paint, I'll be ready for game day.




Quite the difference.