My Find!

[micky]

Last night I saw a post for a SSP about an hour after it posted in San Francisco CL.  Long story short, my brother picked it up for me tonight and will keep it at his house there until my next trip up (Im in So Cal).  It ended up being a great deal -- free.  It has a broken ash catcher and sweeper and it's missing its igniter/tank components.  The SS table, bin, frame, lower rack, and kettle are in pretty good condition, according to brother.  No rust to speak of.  I'm gonna be bothering you all for help in bringing this one up to snuff!

[WNC]

Um any SS is great, a free ones better! Can't wait to see it all cleaned up and cooking (probably not as much as you though)!

[1911Ron]

Congrats on a great score!  Ask as many questions as you need, check here for threads on restoring your new grill http://weberkettleclub.com/forums/weber-kettles-accessories/weber-kettle-technical-reference-library/

Also @zavod44 has or had the cross bar for the ash catcher ring check with him and see if he has any more.

[Qreps]

Congratulations great score

[micky]

Thanks -- I'm happy!  Just received a photo taken after unloading. Looks like I have my work cut out for me:

[Jon]

It's coming to me now...wait..I maybe see some citrus degreaser in someones future. Or the cleaning product of your choice.

That all looks like it will clean up beautifully. Very nice grill. What a deal. And way to be patient for a deal, for what?...a day?

[micky]

Yes my cleaning supply collection will be growing. Looking forard to seeing how much improvement I can make. 
I feel like pinching myself at my good fortune on this deal.  The truth is that I've been lurking and CLing for a couple of months now.  So i have exercised some patience and put in some time.  I started posting here, and broke down and bought a rusty Platinum, when my patience turned to impatience!  Lessons learned. 

[fedex]

Just looks like alot of dirt.  Should clean up nice.

[micky]

You're gonna jinx it -- can't be that easy!

[MikeRocksTheRed]

It will cleanup good!  And it looks like it has some of the gas ignition parts hanging under it.  The gas ignition isn't required so that can be something you peice together over time, as it is a little bit expesive.  Ace Hardware sells the right size tank to hang from the grill....  http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=21226816

If you want to be amazed at the cleanup process, I'd start with the bottom kettle bowl.  Use some Easy Off then scrape with razor blades.  Both of the kettles I have done so far cleaned up really easy and the results are shocking!

[micky]

MikeRTR, I hope you're right.  I won't actually see/get it for a couple of weeks, so until then my fingers are crossed.  I'm hoping for the "shocking" experience after using razor blades and elbow grease in the bowl.  I've seen enough pictures on this forum to know that miracles happen, but still can't quite believe that such great clean-ups are really possible!

Many thanks for the link to a replacement tank at Ace – good to know I can get one when the time comes.  Actually, I was kinda hoping for a charcoal-only SSP (first world problem, as the college kids say), so I'm in no hurry to get the propane thing going – so long as I can find a way to control heat and suitably block whatever gas-delivery holes are left uncovered in the bowl when running it with a chimney rather than a tank.

[MikeRocksTheRed]

@micky  - Just read the CL ad.  It mentions paint peeling under the lid....that is most likely a good thing.  It isn't the paint, its the carbon build up flaking off....If you are lucky and most of the lid is like that, it will make cleaning that a lot easier.

Here is the lid from my most recent find.  I had a small section of "peeling off paint" as your seller called it.  Unfortunately it was just a small section, so the rest of the lid is going to take a lot of scraping.

Before touching it:  You can see the cracking and peeling carbon build up.


After about 2 minutes of my attention:  The flaking build up came right off.  The rest of the lid is another story involving running out of daylight and not finishing it yet.  LOL

[SixZeroFour]

Nice find and I agree with fedex - I bet it cleans up real nice! Congrats.

[TexasOnion]

when you get to cleaning it up // I don`t clean the edge that meets the top of the bowl  / sometimes this gunk is what seals the two together /and reduces air loss around the rim

[micky]

Thanks again to all; I hope you're all correct.  I know there isn't supposed to be any paint in there, so I hope the owner just didn't know what he was seeing.  On the other hand, it's possible that he knows it's paint because he (or some other prior owner) did in fact paint the inside for some reason.  Either way, my reading at WKC tells me I can deal with it.  I am not afraid.

Thanks for that tip, TxOnion -- that's real inside dope.  Do you leave the crud intact on the edges of both the bowl and the lid?