The Estate.....Chestnut Copperton Barn Find

[zavod44]

So a while back Troy said he had a buddy with an old Chestnut in his barn.  After some negotiations the owner decided to sell it and I was very happy to get it.  It was in nice shape, it was very dirty but it could I could see the diamond in the rough.  I got this well over a year ago but I finally got around to getting it back to the shape it deserved. 

Here it is when I picked it up in April of 2013, dusty, dirty, handle roached....






Here it was last fall in my group shot, it the second row






Fast forward to last week, here it is in the refurbish stash




It was covered in this crusted on crud











Inside crusted with grime and grease




Lid full of grease and cob webs






Vent wheel frozen and packed with crud





Bottom vents frozen





Cracked out my vintage lawn chair, vintage TV tray and my mobile grill cleaning cart.  This is my usual set up for cleaning grills.  I set the grill in the trash can and it keeps it stable while scrubbing.  There is usually a small speaker and a coke zero as well.....





Legs off






Set up on the trash can ready for cleaning





Crud crud and more crud!












 
Triangle rusty





LEgs and triangle polished up





Here she is all assembled





My goal with this grill was not to polish it all up like new, but take what was there and try to clean it up.  If some pitting remained that was okay.  I wanted to make a looker/cooker.  I got most of the pitting off the bottom vents and cracked them free.  I realized I didn't take pictures of them and it's now dark outside so I'll take some more tomorrow and post them.  I saved the thumbscrews and the wheel caps.  I must admit I used a set of donor wheels so they looked a little better.  I ran out of my evaporust, so I ordered more, and I will put  back the original wheels once they soak a while.  So here it is in all it's glory.  This is one of my favorites I own.  I'll prob cook on it next week.....





New handle replaced with a fresh one. 




















Needless to say the two inspectors showed up, Lucy and Phoebe.....










NO more crud

















More pics when I fire it up.  I'll get a few more of the inside so you can see the nice clean gray color


This was a long time coming, I'm so glad it's done and I can start to use it.......

[MaxBobcat]

Got a nice tight fade on it.  Very nice rescue.

Looks sweet!   

[Craig]

Beautiful work as always Brian!! I remember this one well. I still have the barn pic saved on my laptop. I cant wait to find one of these down the line. I really like that you kept it with the "lived in" look. That's what I'm doing with one of my old reds this week.

[zavod44]

Love the tight fade

[Craig]

Its almost got the same fade pattern as the grey Plainsman. aka white whale..

[zavod44]

Yea the lived in look was the goal.  A little rust was okay.  Like the pickers say....rusty gold....

[Troy]

Wow, it looks great!!!

And that's the first pink anyone had ever seen!!

[zavod44]

In the setting sunlight it appears very pink....

[Craig]

Wow, it looks great!!!

And that's the first pink anyone had ever seen!!

Yes it is! I remember way back when thinking it was a "really faded redhead" oh to be a pup again..

[zavod44]

I did want to mention I used a new cleaning method on this and it only took me about two hours to get this cleaned up....

[G]

Looks great Zav....OK, Ill bite.  Whats the new method?

[SixZeroFour]

What a remarkable kettle and back story! Great job on the restore Brian and nice teamwork WKC!



Where'd you get that sweet handle? 

[Craig]

Looks great Zav....OK, Ill bite.  Whats the new method?

What G said. I average 4 hours a kettle...  Maybe I'm going about this all wrong..

[G]

Oh yea.....I see the mini-ranch is getting some use. 

I average 4 hours a kettle

Seems the lid/bowl are usually the easy part.  The legs, triangle, wheels, ash pan seem to be a good chunk of the overall time.

[Craig]

Oh yea.....I see the mini-ranch is getting some use. 

I average 4 hours a kettle

Seems the lid/bowl are usually the easy part.  The legs, triangle, wheels, ash pan seem to be a good chunk of the overall time.

That's the truth. Especially the ash pan. With mine anyways..