Distance between RF plate and racks? Update with pic. Anyone????

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radio

Master of the Pit
Original poster
Jul 28, 2013
1,090
408
S.W. Mo
Just made a deal on an older New Braunfels smoker and am pumped about cleaning her up and doing some mods to turn her into a reverse flow.  Had the mini van today and it's too dirty and big to get in there, so have to 35 miles back with the truck to pick it up.

When I lifted the lid I could see the grates were maybe an inch above the opening to the fire box and the opening looked larger than necessary. 

My question is this.  How much distance is optimal between the rf plate and the cooking grates?  It's gonna be interesting to see if I can drop the rf plate down far enough and still keep enough opening to the fb. I do want to make the rf plate full length and put in a drain.  Also want to copy Ribwizard's design of adding a semicircle to the end of the smoker to curve the smoke/heat back to the CC instead of having the RF plate stop short of the end of the CC

The grates can't be raised as they are at the very edge of the door opening.  Looks like I might need to unbolt the fb and clean and seal it to the cc as I can see daylight between the two, but other than surface rust she is pretty darned solid.  Stopped at Wally World to pick up some paint for it and looked at the smokers they had there.  Those things are thin as stovepipe metal!!!!

Update:

The grate sets less than half an inch higher than the FB opening, so is there a critical, or optimum distance from the bottom of the grates to the RF plate if I mod this thing?  If I don't do an RF mod, I will at least fashion a deflector plate to go over the FB opening.  Any recommended length on that?  I'm thinking about a foot should do ok, but need the input of experienced folks please.

I have used the search feature, but can't find anything that mentions a good distance between the two

Thanks for any input

 
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Sounds intresting. Do you have a pic?

Happy smoken.

David
Just got home with it and is dark and rainy.  Will unload it and get a pic in the morning.   As near as I can tell from looking on the internet, it is the Red River model as it has the warming plate on top of the FB.  The thing is HEAVY!!!

I want to take off the FB and clean things up real good as there is a gap between it and the CC.  Might be the ideal time to drop the FB down and re engineer the opening to the CC where the heat comes directly out of the top of the FB.  It is bolted on now, so not sure how I will support it when it gets dropped

Just noticed that it has the remnants of a gas pipe going in the bottom of the FB

Anyone want to weigh in on my question about the best distance between the grates and the (soon to be installed) RF plate?
 
Just remembered he had a pic on Craig's list, so I swiped it.  Here ya go Mule
Beer.gif


She is thick and heavy.  Not bad for 60 bucks, eh?   Ya, ya, I know.  Free is even better
biggrin.gif


 
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Bump   Edited with pic and more info in top post
 
 
you might need to lower the SFB to get the RF plate lower under the grate....I have a char broil just like it and seen what it needs to make it an RF smoker, I then said nahh it will stay as is and never had any troubles doing any smoking in it....but I did do all the mod's to it I read here....

might check out my thread on what I did to mine....

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/94357/my-char-broil-bullet-smoker
 
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Thanks Bob
beercheer.gif
  I somehow missed that one in all the searches I did.  Nice mods for sure

I'm torn on whether to do the RF mod on this one or just do mods similar to yours.  To do the RF, the FB would definitely have to be dropped and the opening enlarged to a semicircle.

I just found an 18X48 stainless CC a guy started on and never finished, so might just build a RF from the ground up.  Can't hurt to have TWO smokers, can it?
biggrin.gif

 
 
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