An old smoker gets moved over to a big boy trailer.

[tom37]

Ok Ok, I know my last project smoker isn't finished yet but what man would finish all projects before starting another. Its kinda like home repairs, why break the trend.

It worked out that I was able to go pick up my newly bought for $500.00 trailer.

At this point it has 13 feet of deck and about 6 feet of tongue on it.

Two 7,500 lb axles with working surge brakes on both, with a axle over spring setup.

If anyone wants to make the trip and gas to get here they can have the ramps, pretty heavy duty if anyone has a need for them. Theres probably almost 20 feet of 2" square tube in them but its not worth my time to try and salvage it for reuse.

With 3 trailers, 3 cars, and my work truck here I have to make a fare amount of progress in the next week or two so that I have room to walk around. Once the old trailer leaves then I can work on the walls, doors, cabinets, shelving, and lights. Once its highway ready I have the rest of the winter to get it all done, then some paint in the spring. At this point I will be Q-ing in style.

It don't look like much yet, but here it is.

 

[chefrob]

this should be a fun one to watch...........

"i'll take a large with x-tra butter"

 

[adiochiro3]

Ambitious!  Keep the pix of your progress coming.

 

[tom37]

I got all the cars, trucks and trailers moved around this morning so I can function. Helped my buddy unload the U Haul and made it back home a little after lunch.

I looked and measured for awhile and decided noting was getting done so I dragged the torch out.

Got the ramps cut off.    Again these are free if someone wants them, I don't think I can afford to ship them tho.

Got the back end cleaned up decent, the trailer is a 1978 so it has a few dents, dings, and springs in it. Its not the space shuttle so as long as it looks good to the eye thats good enough. Its gonna be tough since I am a little anaI with the little stuff that I will know isn't perfect. But what the heck.

The tail end id getting 3 feet of new trailer to get the setup I am looking for. Everything is cut and beveled ready to weld up.

The brackets on the fender is to support the center post of my roof, its also where the stainless tables mount to so its not practical to move it.

All of the structual points will get welded up with a Miller Big 40 pushing a new package of 7018 rod. I really don't want it to come apart on the way to a cook. The non critical welds will get the mig so long as I can reach it with the short torch leed.

This one was done with the Miller 211 autoset with .035 solid wire.

To top off the day, I had a guy drive up and ask me what it would cost to build a 300 gal pit with a SFB, three shelves, and also on some sort of trailer.

YIKES!!!!

Why couldn't this guy have came buy a month ago?

I had to tell him the price would be really really high untill spring, since I am kinda jammed up. I guess if he really wants to pay then I will have to haul this one to the farm for storage until I am finished.

Thanks for taking the time to check out my build.

 

[raptor700]

Looks lika a Diamond in the rough! I would love to find a deal like that,I'm planning on a trailer rig with a roof and 3 stumps clones for comps. I'm following this build for some good ideas

 

[tom37]

Oh man raptor, three clones would be the icing on the cake.

I am still in the thinking stages and I am defiantly open for ideas.

I would like to incorporate some type of vent hood just over head high above the smoker doors. I know the smoke is part of cooking just like burning your hands pulling pork. But, if I can find a way to keep the pain away then I am all for it. I think a pressure switch of sorts along with a override switch would be a pretty slick way to operate it. I want a little more volume then a range hood, if anyone has ideas for the fan motor and impeller, I'm all ears.

Another question for the trailer rig owners, What kind of lighting do you all use?

I have looked at these but I'm scared they won't give enough light to work by.

http://www.affordablequalitylighting.com/docs/indoor/rope/clear/120vstandard/dx150c/index.html

X mas lights work and give good light but its a pain having all the screw in bulbs to deal with.

 

[kcbluesnbbq]

Looks like you are off to a great start Tom. You got more ambition than I do right now.

Have you considered LED lights. If you needed to run on battery power, they will last for a long time without much drain on the battery. I have a couple of long under hood LED lights that put out more light than fluorescents do.

I have a buddy that would take those ramps off your hands. We could come and get them out of your way.

Looks like you are making fast progress on it.

Can't wait for the next update.

 

[tom37]

Actually I have looked at the LED rope, its just hard to compare the light output. Maybe I am looking right at it but not seeing the comparison.

I do see that the LED is 200 bucks more then the standard rope light for 150 feet. Making the LED 270.00 something.

I think the LED would be a very cool addition to the rig and its still a thought since the life is so much longer and there is no heat, the blue or the green would be pretty neat to turn on when its party time and then the white for crunch time.

Cool deal on the ramps, I will be here all day Fri working on it and should also be here sat as well. Just give me a call and make sure the grand plan has not changed. There heavy, thats for sure. If for some reason he doesn't think they will work or there just to heavy then they can hang out for awhile and go to the scrap at work. It would be nice to see someone get something needed for the best price of all. ( Free )

 

[fourashleys]

Looks good so far. Looking forward to seeing the progress. 

 

[deannc]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who keeps a few home repairs projects unfinished! LOL  I tell the wife when she brings them up I'm waiting for a minute when I'm bored and I'm going to get them finished! haha

Great find on the trailer....looking forward to watching the progress!  Good luck on your new project!  

 

[tom37]

It sucks getting dark early, I really hate it.

I managed a couple hours tonight, got the tail end straight and welded up. I would post a close up of my weld but my vertical up welds are one of the less pretty things in life. Especially working on my head in the dark.

Once I get the truck here tomorrow night I will be able to rig and pick the roof, moving it to the new resting place. I think I am going to set it in place, then revamp the 4 corner post. Changing them out from 2" pipe to 4" angle. This should clean up the looks of things and also give me the most available room when I am finished.

Heres a shot after welding since if theres no pic then it didn't happen, LOL. I do still have gussets to weld in and also the frame for the floor but this is all that is needed to support the roof and smoker.

I am trying to decide if I want expanded metal for the floor or if I want to use marine plywood and maybe rhino line it. Two or three feet in front of the smoker will be walk tread grating for sure, just to prevent getting grease on it and getting slick.

 

[tom37]

Well it went pretty good, I still have all my fingers and toes.

My buddy is suppose to be coming over tomorrow, I sure hope he comes thru. Today I felt like I was going in circles. I took the vid incase something bad happened, that way at the next contest we would have something entertaining to watch.

 My vid was about 45 minutes and I spent about an hour trying to edit the slow moments out. Well me and the program didnt get along very well so I just had to cut it to 15 minutes for now.

 

[bamaboy]

Sweet.i am jealous

By the way your verts look a hell of alot better than mine

 

[tom37]

Today was a decent day all in all. We got all four corners extended out to 8 feet so now there is floor space behind and in front of the fenders. It doesn't sound like much but 18 inch's is 18 inch's no matter how you cut it. I'm not happy with the brace for the center post but if that ends up being the only thing I am not happy with then I all is good.

We spent the better part of the afternoon reworking the tongue since it must have been jack knifed several times and most of the welds were broken. The research and development division decided to shorten up the channel that goes from the hitch back on angle to the outside frame. This was due to the fact that I will shorten the I-Beam tongue someday when the surge brakes finally give out and I have to change it over to electric brakes. For the mean time R&D has decided to box the H-Frame tongue for add torsional strength so I am safe until the hitch is changed out.

Now for those of you that weld, a monkey can lay down a nice bead in flat position. But you have to be a semi talented monkey to lay it down nice on a vertical up. I was close to having semi talent but was still a little off. After watching several different welds and situations I could finally see what I was doing wrong. BTW, watching a skilled welder at work is worth more then a million words.

Here is what I came away from the day with. First I will show ya a pic of my worst uphill weld then my pride and joy second.

Just for the record this one was ground out and redone.

Then at the end of the day I ran this one. Just for the record there is 2 passes made first then this cover pass since this

piece comes in at a 45 degree angle. Regardless I was pretty stinkin happy with my results. Now I just have to practice

so I can do this every time.

One more shot showing the bed extension on both sides of the fenders. The pipe roof supports will come out tomorrow letting me extend the pipe the tables hangs on to the angle roof support on the corners. After that I can build fold up stairs and decide what material to make the floor out of. At that point I will be cooking with wood and charcoal again, oh ya and a little bit of gas too. There will still be plenty to do but it will be functional and road worthy.

Sorry for all the build pics but I enjoy building just as much as I enjoy Q-ing. Sure wish I had a shop tho.

 

[bamaboy]

Cool man,looking good

 

[tom37]

Its dark and cold so I gave it up for the night. Plus, no sense giving the little trick r treaters arc burn!!!

I had to give up half the day to mowing up leaves, its a drag but has to be done.

I got to toot my own horn this morning, My boss and 5 friends went to the chiefs game today so at 5:00 this morning I started fixing them up with tailgate food from the last smoke.

A couple pounds of PP and a couple pounds of brisket. I had to nuke it to looses up the fat, once it was separated I wrapped it in foil with juice and fat and tossed it in the oven at 225 until 7:00.

Wrapped it up in towels and put it in the cooler and headed to meat them at 8:00.

They just called a little while ago to tell me how fantastic it all was. They even had someone ask where they could buy meat like that. I guess it must have smelled pretty decent.

Back to the trailer,

Once again research and development was hard at it last night while I slept !!!! 

They decided that I should install a torque tube from the from axle point to the front of the deck. The plan is to stop the flex between the axle and the front of the trailer so that I will only need level jacks on the rear, and a jack for the tongue. I have been on several rigs that flex really bad when you walk on them if all four jacks aren't down really tight. This is gonna be my baby for the next 8 years so I want it right from the start.

This afternoon I cleaned up some torch cuts and welded plate to box in the H-beam to finish the tongue.

The wife does not know yet but I am taking off tomorrow and tues to work on my baby!!!!

With any luck tomorrow I can get the front part of the floor support built and have it ready for the floor boards by tues morning. We'll see how it goes.

 

[tom37]

Today is a Sad day!!!!

Its my last day off until thanks giving.

With the price of steel, I had to take part of the day yesterday and hunt thru the salvage yard to find a few more heavy pieces of frame steel. And picked up two sheets of expanded metal. Then this morning I had to hit the chiropractor and found out he wants a MRI. Lucky me huh!!!!   Then the license and registration office. It wasn't bad, $32.00 for three years worth of trailer tags. Then I heard, honey since you are home maybe you could go get us lunch and eat with me. (she works from home)

Ya know what, I had to, bless her heart she has said nothing about all the little odds and ends that I am buying.

Then I had to get the old trailer out of the driveway along with my drums and other misc items. Its all cleaned up now, the wife is happy and I hope the city will stay happy until I finish.

By dark tonight I was able to get the floor supports built out and the angle iron that will hold the floor boards in place welded on. All the floor bracing is in place, now I must decide how much walk tread grate I want to install under the fire box.

Sorry the pics came out very poor with it being dark,so I figure I will wait till I get good shots.

 

[bmudd14474]

sad day indeed. The build is looking great so far.

 

[fourashleys]

The build looks great. Wish I had room for a rig like that but momma already said "It ain't goin' in my driveway"

 She is glad I like building them though. She doesn't mind me buying parts, so it all comes out in the wash.

 

[chefrob]

nuthin' is more important............

......the wife is happy ........