quick-n-dirty WSM cleanup

[addicted-to-smoke]

Found a super cheap 18.5" WSM a couple weeks ago and decided to surprise my brother in law with it. That happens next weekend. His main machine is a 4-burner Genesis (2007-ish) but keeps an OTG around (which is what I use if I cook at his house, heh.) Anyway, this WSM may be something he gets into.

It's older and heavily used. There are no letter codes on any of the vents. It however came to me with a dirty, curved plastic handle like from the '00s.

Can't figure this out, the bowl has four sections of heavy gouges at the inside lip, almost but not quite equidistant around the rim, like this:




The bowl was a little out of round and I gamely bear hugged it from a few angles. That helped but the middle section still fits loosely. This is my only performance concern, that it'll run too hot due to air leakage right at the coals. I'll look into one of those WSM seal kits but need to keep the cost of this down. Any other suggestions?

The lower leg nuts (the ones that double as the charcoal grate support) were as rusty as the charcoal grate, and I felt bad for not swapping the hardware for SS, especially since I'd decided I couldn't afford to additionally buy him a new charcoal grate which would only make the situation worse over time.




As a compromise I decided to retain the rusted char grate since they're like $30 but give him the charcoal grate from my 18er grill and buy myself a new charcoal grate for that grill. That way, he'll have a second grate that can fit inside the charcoal ring at 90 degrees and save some charcoal and/or use lump if he wants to.

Two of the three lower leg nuts needed help coming off,




Other stuff, the water pan, lower/upper grates, door etc all OK. I still intend to paint a mark on the door knob to denote "UP" so that there's no guesswork about closure. The grate strap hardware I left as-is since those nuts are protected from rust with a nice layer of grease.

He doesn't have any sort of remote thermometer but I can see him eventually getting one. I like the idea of cutting a notch up top but didn't trust my skill set there, so I opted for a high heat silicone grommet between the grate locations,



http://www.mcmaster.com/#1061t13/=xa6hlh


Next, I decided to pimp it with the standard WSM thermometer setup and a zavod handle, the latter finished with spar varnish.

[1buckie]

Pretty good fixup there.....the gouges might have been somebody trying to pound it into shape so the sections fit better?

Seen stranger things happen......

[pbe gummi bear]

Nice cleanup. Do you think those gouges are from  placing the middle section onto the bowl too hard? See if the distances line up with the circumference of the midsection. That charcoal grate is also pretty shot. Perhaps they used the bowl as a firepit and the gouges are from placing things on the bowl?

I also have a wsm that runs hot. For that one I modulate the temperature with the top vent by closing it to 50% or so.

[1911Ron]

Looks great, if you have time do a test run to see if it will run hot or not and at least establish a baseline for him.

[WNC]

That's one fine machine, and nice clean up!
Take it over and break it in with him, that way you show him the ropes, he'll see how easy it to use, and then be more likely to use it often

[mrbill]

nice fix up!
the bowl rash is a puzzle. not really sure what went on to make that happen. based on the amount of rust seen in the pics, I'm guessing it was left outside uncovered. in your last pic, I can see some rash on the outside of the lip as well. on the inside of the bowl lip, it appears as if there are some enamel chips where some of the gouges start/end. there are also some horizontal lines that I'm going to assume are from you cleaning it up. all in all, my best guess(aside from it being uncovered outside) is that it was either knocked over or fell off something(probably more than once) and came out of round and the previous owner was less than gentle in correcting that(you stated you had to do the bear hug, so it was out of round at least once, probably more). not sure what methods they may have used, but that smoker has most definitely been beat on by something.

[SixZeroFour]

They almost look like stress fractures as opposed to normal chipping... See how the porcelain almost popped away from the cracks. Maybe a car pulled into the garage a little two far and pinched the lower bowl/barrel which would explain the out of round.

Either way you did a great job getting back into game shape! Your brother in law is a lucky guy +50 WKC Karma points

[addicted-to-smoke]

... Take it over and break it in with him, that way you show him the ropes, he'll see how easy it to use, and then be more likely to use it often

Oh I definitely will show him the ropes and help him do his first cook on it. Pretending to be an expert with an audience is half the fun.

They almost look like stress fractures as opposed to normal chipping ... +50 WKC Karma points

I may have even heard some of that happen while slowly squeezing it back into shape now that you mention it. It makes sense that you can't bend the metal and not risk porcelain popping off. The majority had to be from the weird scratches however. And I'll take Karma points wherever I can get 'em!