New build... Mostly. (pics)

Once upon a time.... Ok, I'm not going to tell the story like that.

My wife and I have always like to entertain. So when I got more into smoking than grilling I needed a larger smoker to accommodate the amount of folks we often have over. And I like playing with fire so I wanted on offset. I couldn't afford to buy one, but I have some limited fabrication skills and some tools. So I built one. I've build a few more over the years for family and friends. My original was always been called good old #1 and a lot of the food that it has tuned out has been seen here over the years and even on mad scientist bbq on youtube once. It was always turned out the best que I have ever produced. But it went through a lot of cutting and re-welding over the years as I learned things and tried different things with it. A few years ago I built a new fire box for it and intended to built a new cook chamber with twice the wall thickness (never had trouble holding temps though) a door that opened one quarter of the chamber rather than half of it, add an upper rack and go with a single stack that did not move with lid. But I needed it for a large cook before I started that part of the project. Sell for three years that just didn't happen. But now it's underway.

I'm stretching the cook chamber from 48"x24" to 52"x24", 2 racks instead of one, Single stack, new walls and top, changes to the firebox to cook chamber interface so I get 2 more vertical inches of usable space. So the the only original part left to this thing is going to be the bottom plate of the cook chamber. So I guess it's gonna need a now name. #9?

Anyway I'm no great fabricator but In know just enough to be dangerous. I'll keep this updated as the project progresses.

A couple of pics of #1 version 5.0 the last version. Version 2.0 is in my profile pic



Remodel work


Stretching




I ran out of wire for the welder today or I would have make it a little further along.

And yes, The walls are not as thick as most of you would like but I'm good with it because it's twice what it was before and I had no trouble with it in the 20's all these years. I'm guessing because the bottom plate is so thick.

Thanks for looking.

shares said:

I have that exact same welder (but flux core) for home projects. Looks like it's handling that thick steel pretty good - nice beads.

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Thanks. wish I could run really pretty ones like the pros, but I manage to get the job done. I've been running that machine for about 8 years. I do run flux in it some times but it's getting 50% on that 1/2" steel so for the ease of clean welding I'm running the whole project with gas.

SmittyJonz said:

:thumb: You're gonna have to get Cali Boy back to church camp and to come cook on it and make a video.........

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That would be fun!

cowgirl said:

Very awesome, Josh!! Home builds outshine anything store bought. imo
Looks great!!

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Thanks Jeanie! I love building them and it's a lot of fun making them for friends and family. But I'm pretty dang excited to be working on my own this time.

Got just a little more done last night. Cut up the pieces for the collector.

photo update

I had time today to finish the assembly of the smoke collector. I'm excited to being one step closer to having my offset back again. Love stick burning. For years it was the only way I ever smoked. Been a long 10 months so far.













Not the prettiest welds with my limited skill but they work.

progress report

After making a campfire cooked breakfast today I headed to the shop to put some more work in the the build.

Felt good to make some progress for the first time in a week. Finished the welding on the extension piece of the bottom plate, got the opening cut where the stack will mount, got the back plane on and both ends. And finished the welding on the stack assembly.







Looking across the cook chamber into the fire box from the exhaust hole on the other side

Ok, time for another update.

Got my welding wire and some more steel. All of the panels are in place, the deflector, bracing, hinges are in. Shelf brackets are started and the stack assembly in on. I had to get a bit creative to get the stack on by myself. Used a piece of 2x4, 1 ratchet strap and 3 cam straps. But its on! I made the hinges for the main door out of .5" rod and a little bit of pipe. When I first put them on I had them backwards, but they were only tacked in place for testing, so I was glad of that. A lot of weld out left to do on the seams and the handle should be going on this weekend. Next week I should have the racks built and get her all cleaned up and ready for paint.

Titch said:

Its all looking great, nice DIY
The exhaust Collecter, why like it is? that to create uniform draw over the Grills?

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You got! Before the rebuild one of my modifications to the old chamber was adding 2 stack to the original design in order to bring the outlet lower, and to increase draw. But because those stacks were further outboard thank the old centered one I found out that it was a more even draw as well. So with this rebuild having only one stack I added the collector to have the same effect and it was a pretty easy way to mount an 8" pipe rather than 45 degree cut and welding the pipe section back together.