JPegg
Found some matches.
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2011
- Location
- Columbus, OH
So yesterday, rather than fight the 100 degree temps here in sunny Columbus, I stayed home and did some modding to my 22" WSM. I had ordered the WSM complete Gasket Kit from http://bbqgaskets.com/catalog_4.html
I ordered on Friday evening, and it was at my door on Monday when I got home from work. The kit came with 1/2" and 1" Nomex for the body and door, respectively. Also included a small bottle of adhesive, and installation "guidelines" and they were barely that. Ill share what I did differently, and how it looked.
First thing I did was throw both rolls of the Nomex into the dryer for a half hour. I cant recall where, but I read somewhere that it would help take the shrink out of it. While it was preshrinking, I used some Formula 409 (food safe), a steel brush, and a bunch of paper towels to clean up around the door, inside the charcoal bowl, and around the lip at the top of the body section. Quite a bit of the grease and other whatnot came off easily with the paper towel, and only required minimal brushing. The "guidelines" that come with it suggest acetone for this. DO NOT USE ACETONE.
I started with lip on the top of the body. Make sure that you cut the seal on the adhesive as close to the top as you can. It isn't very a very thick liquid, and spreads easily. "Guidelines" suggest using a small comb to help spread the adhesive out, and giving it 15 minutes to get tacky before applying the Nomex. DO NOT DO THIS. The adhesive was ready to go as soon as soon as I put the bead down. I just moved the bottle back and forth in a M type pattern and that was plenty. I did roughly 1/5-1/4 of the lip at a time, making sure that I pressed the Nomex up against the outside edge of the lip, and making sure that it was laid down flat with no ridges. Didnt need to use the comb or wait for the adhesive to get tacky.
I did the gasket for the door next. How I did it was wildly different than what was recommended in the guidelines, and how it was done in the images on the company website. They showed the 1" Nomex applied directly to the body of the smoker. While Im sure it was effective, to be honest, it looked TERRIBLE. Gasket was showing outside the width of both doors, and over the top. I like the clean look of my WSM, and decided that I would be better served applying the gasket directly to the door. I stuck it to the outer and upper edges, and it sealed up well. One issue I found, and I may have been completely oblivious to it before, is that there are two very small openings at the bottom of the door where the "hinge" is. They didnt leak at all, but they were open, and unaffected by the gasket. I had to use a shot of the door "after" because my first pic didnt come out as well as I had hoped. Sorry. Gives you a good idea of the seal it offers though.
The last part I did was the inside edge of the charcoal bowl. I had never really had any leakage problems from this area, but, they sent me enough gasket and adhesive, and, well, I had the whole day to myself. I figured why not? It was the most difficult of the three gaskets to apply, as there are no landmarks to make sure that your gasket is even. I just kind of eyeballed it, but I think that it came out pretty well. Rather than apply the adhesive to the inside surface of the bowl, I applied it directly to the Nomex its' self. This seemed to greatly reduce the amount of adhesive that was just running down the inside.
The bottom gasket made the body a pain in the ass to put on. It may have been a smarter idea to put the gasket for this part onto the bottom of the body, versus the charcoal bowl. To be honest, if you aren't having any issues with leakage from the bottom, I would save your time and not use it at all. Was fun to experiment with though.
After I let all of the gaskets sit and cure for an hour or so, I fired up my chimney and started the WSM up. As usual, it heated up fairly quickly, and held 225-275 with zero adjustments to the dampers for 10 hours before it started to fall off. Ran the bottom at 0%/0%/50%, and the top damper was wide open the whole time. There was almost zero visible smoke leakage either. There was a hint a few times of smoke leaking from the door lock, but I would call it virtually inconsequential.
Overall, Im happy with the Mod, and think that it will help with my efforts in the long run. I do think that it may be a bit overpriced, but at the same time, I have no idea how much Nomex costs. The "guidelines" that came with the kit were awful, and almost comnpletely useless. Other than that, I would say that I am very happy with it, how easy it was to install, and how it turned out. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to someone if asked. I would also like to apologize for the different sized pics as well. No idea how that happened, but They give a good idea of what I was working with.
I ordered on Friday evening, and it was at my door on Monday when I got home from work. The kit came with 1/2" and 1" Nomex for the body and door, respectively. Also included a small bottle of adhesive, and installation "guidelines" and they were barely that. Ill share what I did differently, and how it looked.
First thing I did was throw both rolls of the Nomex into the dryer for a half hour. I cant recall where, but I read somewhere that it would help take the shrink out of it. While it was preshrinking, I used some Formula 409 (food safe), a steel brush, and a bunch of paper towels to clean up around the door, inside the charcoal bowl, and around the lip at the top of the body section. Quite a bit of the grease and other whatnot came off easily with the paper towel, and only required minimal brushing. The "guidelines" that come with it suggest acetone for this. DO NOT USE ACETONE.
I started with lip on the top of the body. Make sure that you cut the seal on the adhesive as close to the top as you can. It isn't very a very thick liquid, and spreads easily. "Guidelines" suggest using a small comb to help spread the adhesive out, and giving it 15 minutes to get tacky before applying the Nomex. DO NOT DO THIS. The adhesive was ready to go as soon as soon as I put the bead down. I just moved the bottle back and forth in a M type pattern and that was plenty. I did roughly 1/5-1/4 of the lip at a time, making sure that I pressed the Nomex up against the outside edge of the lip, and making sure that it was laid down flat with no ridges. Didnt need to use the comb or wait for the adhesive to get tacky.
I did the gasket for the door next. How I did it was wildly different than what was recommended in the guidelines, and how it was done in the images on the company website. They showed the 1" Nomex applied directly to the body of the smoker. While Im sure it was effective, to be honest, it looked TERRIBLE. Gasket was showing outside the width of both doors, and over the top. I like the clean look of my WSM, and decided that I would be better served applying the gasket directly to the door. I stuck it to the outer and upper edges, and it sealed up well. One issue I found, and I may have been completely oblivious to it before, is that there are two very small openings at the bottom of the door where the "hinge" is. They didnt leak at all, but they were open, and unaffected by the gasket. I had to use a shot of the door "after" because my first pic didnt come out as well as I had hoped. Sorry. Gives you a good idea of the seal it offers though.
The last part I did was the inside edge of the charcoal bowl. I had never really had any leakage problems from this area, but, they sent me enough gasket and adhesive, and, well, I had the whole day to myself. I figured why not? It was the most difficult of the three gaskets to apply, as there are no landmarks to make sure that your gasket is even. I just kind of eyeballed it, but I think that it came out pretty well. Rather than apply the adhesive to the inside surface of the bowl, I applied it directly to the Nomex its' self. This seemed to greatly reduce the amount of adhesive that was just running down the inside.
The bottom gasket made the body a pain in the ass to put on. It may have been a smarter idea to put the gasket for this part onto the bottom of the body, versus the charcoal bowl. To be honest, if you aren't having any issues with leakage from the bottom, I would save your time and not use it at all. Was fun to experiment with though.
After I let all of the gaskets sit and cure for an hour or so, I fired up my chimney and started the WSM up. As usual, it heated up fairly quickly, and held 225-275 with zero adjustments to the dampers for 10 hours before it started to fall off. Ran the bottom at 0%/0%/50%, and the top damper was wide open the whole time. There was almost zero visible smoke leakage either. There was a hint a few times of smoke leaking from the door lock, but I would call it virtually inconsequential.
Overall, Im happy with the Mod, and think that it will help with my efforts in the long run. I do think that it may be a bit overpriced, but at the same time, I have no idea how much Nomex costs. The "guidelines" that came with the kit were awful, and almost comnpletely useless. Other than that, I would say that I am very happy with it, how easy it was to install, and how it turned out. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to someone if asked. I would also like to apologize for the different sized pics as well. No idea how that happened, but They give a good idea of what I was working with.
