I finally got around to making the second brace. As an aside, it is a lot easier to bend 3/8" rebar using a 14" piece of EMT (stick the rebar through the EMT and pull against that instead of the rebar itself.)
I'm sure I could fit 6 racks of back loin ribs on that without any difficulty. Maybe even that many racks of spares.
I notched the parts where they cross and bent such that there is a little tension on the joint for additional stability. It feels really solid!
To recap the keys to stability:
- light tension where the slots on the bars fit on the tabs that support the upper rack. Rebar is not spring steel so you won't get a lot of tension anyway, but too much makes it harder to install the pieces on the smoker.
- carefully ground slots for the tabs. These need to fig snugly.
- light tension where the pieces cross.
Now that I have a better strategy for bending rebar, I think I could make one using 1/2" rebar for the 22.5 WSM.