Home made rotisserie ring

[HankB]

I've been working on this a bit and now I have a question so I'm starting a thread on this. I chopped the end off a 55 gallon drum and cut one section out of it. When I test fit a lid to the top, I could see the barrel diameter was a bit bigger than the lid. Likewise the end of the ring that I had hoped to slip into the kettle. The solution was to make a vertical cut and overlap to bring the diameter to a decent fit. I think I wound up with almost 2" of overlap. That provides a good fit for the lid and a snug fit into the kettle.



Around the kettle I welded four tabs to provide support. The ring doesn't actually sit on these but rather they keep any edge from slipping too far into the kettle. I could have put them about 1/8" further down but they are where they are...



Height of the ring above the edge of the kettle is 10"



And height of the lid is about 18" above the grate (17 1/2" at the vent).



The question I have is how high to mount the rotisserie spit on the ring. Would you split the difference? That would make it about 9" above the grate which is purely a reference point since the grate can be left out when using the rotisserie. Should I make it a little lower to provide additional clearance under the lid? Based on your experience with your rotisserie, what would you do?

[Bman]

Daymn Hank --- that's incredible.  Couldn't you have found something thicker to make this out of?  Seems kinda flimsy.  lmao

The question I have is how high to mount the rotisserie spit on the ring. Would you split the difference? That would make it about 9" above the grate which is purely a reference point since the grate can be left out when using the rotisserie. Should I make it a little lower to provide additional clearance under the lid? Based on your experience with your rotisserie, what would you do?

I'm a little confused by your question.  Would you be cutting a 5" long slot in order to drop the spit into the center?  Seems like that would be a fairly large air 'hole' and not sure how that might affect the temp control.  I'm sure you've already looked at the Weber roti, but here's a couple more pics.







]

[MaxBobcat]

Pretty slick Hank.  Looks good! 

[HankB]

Daymn Hank --- that's incredible.  Couldn't you have found something thicker to make this out of?  Seems kinda flimsy.  lmao

...

I'm a little confused by your question.  Would you be cutting a 5" long slot in order to drop the spit into the center?  Seems like that would be a fairly large air 'hole' and not sure how that might affect the temp control.  I'm sure you've already looked at the Weber roti, but here's a couple more pics.

Thanks for the pix.

It is somewhat flimsy, in fact. More so than the Weber ring I'm sure. The metal on those barrels is not that thick. But the rim at the top and tight fit into the kettle seems to make it pretty stable.

I ordinarily control temperature with the bottom vents - habit learned form the WSM I guess. If the slot is too big, I could make some sort of cover for it. I've already given that some thought.

Thanks!

[pbe gummi bear]

Hank, that's actually really nice! good job. What if you left a a rib in the middle of the ring for stiffness?

[HankB]

What if you left a a rib in the middle of the ring for stiffness?

The stiffest part of the barrel is where the lid is crimped on. I want to keep that there to provide some stiffness at the top edge as well as a decent surface on which the lid will perch. I've retained the first taper of one of the corrugations to provide something that will sit in the kettle. With that, the ring is about ten inches tall. Adding additional corrugations would make it taller yet.

It feels pretty solid sitting on the kettle. I plan to add gussets where the spit will be supported. I can also run a bead around the inside of the bottom edge for some additional stiffness.

[G]

Impressive work Hank....that would also make a nice stacker for indirect cooking.  Just add a grate. 

[Hogsy]

Great build Hank
That's exactly what I want to do with the a kettle pizza build except I need to keep the height down to 7 inches. But I'm worried it's going to be too flimsy
Mind you I did cook some pizza on the weekend and it turned out pretty good

[Duke]

Nice work Hank! I think that would make a nice stacker/smoker extension. Please make me one.

[HankB]

More progress on this. I thought I'd share some pix.

First a disclaimer. I recently got a small MIG welder. I know some of you know what that is. And you will probably cringe when you see my welds. Feel free to comment if you wish. I am still developing mad welding skillz and appreciate helpful comments. I found this stuff somewhat difficult to weld due to the thinness of the material - about 18ga. Like my welding instructor said, if all you want to do is stick stuff together it doesn't have to be pretty. I stuck with lap welds as they were less likely to burn through and verified penetration by looking for burn marks on the back side of the weld. I may grind them down or I may leave them as a testament to learning.

This was constructed from a 55 gallon drum that I cut into pieces for this project. I left the top lip in place to provide a seating surface for the lid. The bottom edge was cut along one of the annular corrugations to provide some taper to fit the bowl. That determined the overall height of the ring which is considerably higher than the commercial versions. The diameter was a bit too big so I made a vertical cut to overlap and reduce diameter to fit the bowl. I wound up with a very snug fit. I added four tabs around the circumference to provide support. I'm not sure that I can even get all to touch at the same time, but they keep the ring from slipping off axis.



(As an aside, if you are going for scorching heat on something with a lid bail, do not place the coals against the side next to the plastic spools.  )

The bracket to hold the motor drive. There's a gusset on the inside for additional support and you can see the back side of the welds here. There are round spots ground into the square spit to provide a pearing surface on the spit. Unfortunately they do not line up with the diameter of the ring. I thought about providing an additional support on the opposite end of the spit until I noticed that the spit could go all of the way through the motor. I decided that I could set the groove at the handle end of the spit in the slot in the ring and let the motor end ride where it lands.



Here's the gusset on the opposite side with the slot for the spit.



Overlap.



Lid to spit - about 9". That divides the distance to the cooking grate.



Overall height.



Money shot?



Next step is to clean it up and paint the outside. I think I'll leave the inside bare and coat it with Pam.

All said and done... The money for the Weber or Cajun Bandit Rotisseries doesn't look so bad. But mine is unique. 

[pbe gummi bear]

That looks awesome, HankB. Thanks for sharing. What other projects do you have cooking up?

[saxart]

Hank-
Nice looking project.   I think your welds look fine from the context that this is a grill, not an F-16 Fighter Jet.  I subscribe to the same basic school of thought you do as so far all of my welds have nothing to do with keeping something safely togther while going down the road, it's just sticking projects together.

Having said that, here are some thoughts the next time you have your welder out.  (I guess I can't leave well enough alone.  Please ignore this if it's something that doesn't interest you.)

I've noticed that my welds tend to look much better if I use a grinding wheel to clean things down to bare (non-rusty/non-painted) metal.  I see what looks like wire-brush marks next to some of your welds, but you could try really grinding it down to shiny bare steel the next time you are working on a project.  If nothing else, I've noticed that I get less smoke to breath in, and less spatter with a really clean surface.

I'm not real "hip" on how much heat should go into welds, but yours look a bit 'cold' on the front side.  Try turning things up a notch and see what happens.  On the flip side, you could try to just slow the wire-feed-speed down a bit, as that will inherently give more heat to the situation since you're not feeding it with so much cold wire.   As I say this I could be ALL WET though because there is certainly lots of evidence of heat on the backside of your welds, which is exactly what we're looking for.

Again, all of this is just one learner to another learner.  I don't know JACK about this, so please don't take it as know it all or 'high and mighty'.  I imagine you and I standing there in your garage going, "Well, what do ya think?"   "Uhh..  I dunno, lets turn it up hotter and see what that does next time."  It seems like everytime I weld it's always different and NEVER as pretty as I'd like.

Again, great project...  Thanks for sharing with us!

P.S.  Nice Wheel Horse!   

[Bbqmiller]

Nice job Hank. I need one of these for my RK.

[Duke]

Again, great work Hank!

[Hogsy]

Late to the thread , but great work Hank