First cook on the Brownie 26er

[saxart]

We finally had some time to get the 26er up and running.  It needed a little TLC before it was in cooking condition.

If you remember, there was a broken off leg socket, so that was the first order of business.   The first thing I did was file the broken off welds, and drill out the holes in the kettle.



Three little hits with the welder and you couldn't even tell it had been broken off.  Even the porcelain on the outside didn't notice.   (I guess I forgot a pic of the finished socket...)

This next part might be a little tough for some to swallow.  This grill had two holes in the kettle that needed to be repaired.  They were located on the outside of the kettle,  behind the brackets that hold the grates inside the kettle.  My suspicion is that as the kettle heated up and cooled during cooks throughout the years, those brackets heated and cooled at a different rate, the porcelain on the outside cracked off under the stress and the metal started to rust, and rust until finally there was a hole.  Like I said, there were two of these holes.  Each of them were big enough that you could put two finger-tips through them.   Here is one of them:  (That rusty metal you see inside the hole is the backside of the grate-bracket.  It had also deformed and pushed in from the expansion of the rust.)



A shot from the inside:



I started the slow process of building up what was gone with the welder.  It was a long process because it consisted of short little tack-welds that had to cool before more were put on top.  I wanted to be carful not to put too much heat into the kettle so it didn't lose any more porcelain.

Here you can see the process:



And here is the plugged up hole:



Some of you who've worked with metal before are probably asking why I didn't make up a patch and weld that patch in.  The problem is that I do not have any metal working tools so there is no way I could match the curvature of the kettle-bowl.  This way was tedious, but worked in the end.

And here it is after clean up with a flap-disk on an angle grinder:



It's certainly not perfect, but it's "17-quad-tra-zillion" times better than a big rusty hole.



You can see some splatter damage from the welder in these pics, but it is very confined to a small area, and part of the price of repairing such damage. 

Here is an example of what heat can do to these kettles.  As I was welding these small tacks, I could hear the kettle not liking the process.  The porcelain kept making sounds as it would cool.  At one point my wife called me back in the house to help her move some furniture.  When I came back out to the garage, the grill had fully cooled, and you could see small chards of porcelain on the ground. 



While this kind of talk usually makes me cringe, it wasn't a big deal, because we are only talking about the outside millimeter of the larger rust spot that had formed.

OK, now it's time to put some legs on it and cook!!



This is what was on the menu.  I get them at Aldi's.  My wife loves them...



We added a few potato wedges slathered in olive oil, salt, pepper, and rosemary.   And this is what we ended up with.  It's funny, what doesn't look like much on this big grill was actually too much for my family of three to eat!



She's not a looker....BUT SHE'S A COOKER!!!!!!!

[Bob BQ]

Rescue, Restore, Respect... great job!

[salad]

Good job.  It's a cooker again so I think that trumps any loss in perceived aesthetics.  Sometimes when things heal, it leaves a scar.  I consider it healed. 

[G]

Well done Sax....a 26 with new life.  The grate strap repairs turned out well. 

[glrasmussen]

Great job Sax's! Great Rescue!

[HankB]

Nice work on the repair! Many would have called that one a loss so it's good to see it returned to service. I recently acquired a small welder and hope to develop skills to be able to do stuff like that. I had wondered how much damage the heat from welding would do to the adjacent porcelain and it's good to see the collateral damage was minimal. And given that the grill could have been scrapped otherwise, it's a pretty reasonable tradeoff. Nice restoration!

Did you follow with paint or just use some Pam or similar to prevent further rust?

Nice cook with the salmon and spuds. I frequently grill potatoes on the grill with whatever else I'm cooking and salmon is one of our favorites.

[Duke]

Nice repair Sax! Did you touch up the repair to keep it from rusting?

[Chasing_smoke]

Great work and cook sax!

[saxart]

Thanks for all of the "Kudos" guys.  It's just fun to put these old kettles back on the road so to speak.

Since some of you asked, no, I did not put any paint on any of the rust-spots or repaired.  The reason for this is twofold; 1) I have not seen a high-heat paint that would come anywhere close to the color of these old grills, 2) All of my Weber products are stored inside our garage, so there is no need to 'protect' them from the elements.  She sat outside last night after the cook, but went right back in the garage this morning.  I put one coat of PAM on the rust spots, and will continue to do that for the next couple of cooks to get a protective build up formed.   

On a side-note...  Does anybody have a picture of what a CURRENT charcoal grate for a 26er looks like?  You could probably fold this one in half with your hands.  If they look close to what this one has now, I'll order a new one when I order the newer style ash-pan for it.

[Troy]

great repair job!!

the new charcoal grate is the same shape for the most part - but it's bigger than the old ones.

[ramsfan]

Very nicely done!

[G]

Sax-Weber doesnt offer replacement grates for the old style 26ers.  Your best bet is a grillmark grate.  See this link.
http://weberkettleclub.com/forums/weber-kettles-accessories/grillmark-accessories-(including-26'-grates)-60-off/msg62252/#msg62252

Not sure if these are still available but you can check your local Ace.  I just found one there for $12.

[saxart]

Thanks G, but I'm looking for the CHARCOAL grate for this grill.  The cooking grate is a bit rusty, but plenty solid.  (But thanks for the tip, that's a GRATE price!) (pun intended)

I'm wondering if anybody knows if the current charcol-grate for a 26er is the 'trussed bridge' design like this older one is.  If you look at what AZMIKEY posted here, you can see what I'm talking about:

http://weberkettleclub.com/forums/weber-kettles-accessories/my-new-18-5'-kettle!-it-is-so-big!-lol/

(Look at the last picture he posted in his initial post of this thread showing the One-Touch assembly and cleaned up charcoal grate.  Is that what comes new from Weber?)

[HankB]

The charcoal grate for the new 26 is a couple inches too big for the older 26 and Weber no longer has the old charcoal grate. I made one from expanded metal for the one I traded to Stu (G).

[G]

Oooops...I think I needed more coffee.  The current design is trussed like the old style but beware, they are not the same size.  See linky:
http://weberkettleclub.com/forums/weber-kettles-accessories/26-75-grate-size-change/msg66135/#msg66135