Joined the 26er club

[Troy]

Thanks @Troy. I appreciate the insight. Any ideas what would have crushed all 3 legs? And only one of them looks like it was potentially pounded out. The other 2 still have the dent (and porcelain loss)

Hard to imagine really.
But the one I saw that was pretty much exactly like that was, "My drunk brother in law sat on the grill"

[1buckie]

A thought or two......


some of the tabs might be a good candidate for a quick drill & stainless rivet to keep  them from popping loose......when there's shock like that, it begins to affect the weld points also.....


Guess on the way it's damaged is somebody dropped it out of a truck or something & it landed on a leg / wheel......that kind of sharp, pointed jolt is what does that kind of thing......from the looks of it, may have happened more than once?

A bigger kettle, carrying extra weight might benefit from the rivet thing to keep it good & stable.....

[huntergreen]

seeing the rust on this young weber 26 incher,  think i should still pick up a new on?  on sale near me for 249.00.  tks

[jkolantern]

@huntergreen I'd say this was some kind of an anomaly, and there's no problems at all for most purchasers.  If you had any problems, Weber is usually great to deal with about solving them.

@1buckie and @Troy , thanks again for your insight.  All three of the sockets have some kind of issue as shown below, so I find it hard to believe that it had a crazy impact like falling out of a truck.  I'd say it was more likely a defect of some kind or some sort of sudden evenly spread out impact, if that's what it was.

I still look forward to trying to fire it up this weekend.  I might try to pick up some aluminum tubing to make a longer front leg to even it out without messing with the sockets further.

[SmokenJoe]

I've used a technic with sand and a bowling ball for dents , I haven't lost any porcelain yet , but with a 26er you'd need a big tub of sand

@Idahawk   Great idea.  I've got a Black(ish) MBH 22" with a major dent in the lid.  I'll give this a try, thanks for the idea.   SJ

[1buckie]

@jkolantern 

I've seen damage like this before......Gummi gave me a real nice Redhead, except for damage just about like this....

Also seen it happen, live & in color more than once.....a guess would be that the blast(s) that caused it may not have happened all at once, but were repeated incidents of a drop from a few feet up.....
It actually doesn't take much to pop the coating like that if the shock is centered at the direct point of the leg, in other words,  if it landed squarely on one leg, that would happen.....a 26'er is heavy also.....
Anyway, enough about damage, I was just concerned that you can get it good & stable & get running some great cooks on the beast !!!

Maybe use Idahawk's embarrassing hillbilly method & fix the shape?

Then see what the tab weld act like?