Reverse Flow plate question

[bnew17]

How do yal like to slope your flow plate away from the firebox. I seen where a 1" drop from end to end is standard. if the plate drops 1" away from the firebox it seems to me the width of the plate would need to decrease on the far end the plate. how do yal go about doing this if you have the angle iron in the middle of the plate?

 

[Dutch]

There is no decrease in the width of my RF plate from one end to the other, The plates are sloped to the v channel and the whole plate itself is fairly level. The lowering of the tongue end facilitates in the draining.

 

[bnew17]

There is no decrease in the width of my RF plate from one end to the other, The plates are sloped to the v channel and the whole plate itself is fairly level. The lowering of the tongue end facilitates in the draining.

That sounds like a good idea. Im curious if lowering of the tongue would affect the draft??
 

 

[Dutch]

Nope-not as long as you stack is the right height and diameter.  One of the tricks of us reverse flow users is to raise or lower the tongue to equal out the heat. I can balance out mine within 5°-10° between the tongue side and the firebox side. The fbside is the hotter of the two.

 

[bnew17]

Nope-not as long as you stack is the right height and diameter.  One of the tricks of us reverse flow users is to raise or lower the tongue to equal out the heat. I can balance out mine within 5°-10° between the tongue side and the firebox side. The fbside is the hotter of the two.

Thats good to know. I think i will go this route. I will be building a 250 gal rf...in your opinion what is the ideal stack width? it seems a 4" on my cooker would be wayyy too tall. Im assuming 5" or 6"?
 

 

[Dutch]

Somewhere on SMF is a calculator that once you enter in the diameter and the length of your tank it will give you the size for your fire box, the opening size between the fire box and the cooking chamber and the diameter and length that our stack should be. IF I can find the Pit Calculator, I'll post up a link to it.

 

[hdflame]

Nope-not as long as you stack is the right height and diameter.  One of the tricks of us reverse flow users is to raise or lower the tongue to equal out the heat. I can balance out mine within 5°-10° between the tongue side and the firebox side. The fbside is the hotter of the two.

That's cool!  How much do you have to raise or lower to see a change?  I know it'd be a little different for each rig.

Somebody made the comment about lowering the tongue to help facilitate draining.  I'm thinking that lowering the tongue would make the end away from the firebox cooler......wouldn't you need to raise it to get more even heat, or would that only be true if you didn't have enough airflow?

 

[sprky]

interesting as well as good info here. 

 

[bnew17]

[quote name="Dutch" url="t/118237/reverse-flow-plate-question#post_776737"]
Somewhere on SMF is a calculator that once you enter in the diameter and the length of your tank it will give you the size for your fire box, the opening size between the fire box and the cooking chamber and the diameter and length that our stack should be. IF I can find the Pit Calculator, I'll post up a link to it.
[/quote]

Thanks dutch..i have already ran my numbers for the smoker...i was just unsire on which diameter pipe for the stack is preferabl

 

[bnew17]

I ended up getting some 6" pipe. My uncle owns a well drilling business so he has quite a supply. He gave me a few scrap piece of pipe so i will go with that.

Back to the rf plate. I like the idea of having it level but i am still somewhat intersted in the thought of having it sloped going away from the firebox for drainage. For those of you that have the RF plate sloped how did you do it? Did you taper your cut on the sides of the plate to allow for the drop?