My mini Ranch Kettle build (kind of still in progress).


 

DaveW

TVWBB Wizard
First, I have to give a couple of shout outs. First one is to Dustin Flavell. His thread on his mini RK build was my first introduction to the concept and after seeing it, I was like "oh yeah, I have to do this". Reading the thread, Dustin gave props to Steve Porter and Stu G for their pioneering efforts in building mini RK's, so shout outs to them as well.

I also owe a debt of thanks to Kevin L (NKY). I kept putting the project off and every now and then Kevin would make a post or PM me asking for a status update :D:D Thanks Kev !!

Anyways, my variation came about because my 26'er was brand spanking new and I had no desire what so ever to drill holes in it to secure it to the frame. The idea was to have the grill just sit cradled by the frame. I went back and forth with all sorts of crazy ideas as to how to strengthen the frame arms to keep it from flexing. Then finally, I said "***, I don't even know for sure if that's going to be a problem". So, I just went ahead and got started. Figured I'd work out any problems as they came up.


I started out by measuring the outer diameter of the kettle, right under the rolled lip. I didn't write stuff down, but I believe that it was pretty close to 26 inches. I measured the inside distance between the uprights of each frame leg and calculated that I needed to remove 9 inches from each one. Another difference between my design and Dustin's (et al's) is that I wanted to remove the uprights that held the charcoal ash pan. So, instead of 2 cuts to take out 1 9 inch piece of each leg, I took out 4.5 inch segments from each side of each frame leg right where those uprights were. This means 4 cuts on each frame leg and 2 splices, for a total of 8 cuts and 4 splices.

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BTW, I should point out that I made a number of mistakes on the project that others would do well to avoid. First, my choice of tools. I didn't have a metal cutting saw blade and didn't want to fork over $45 for one at HD. So, I got a 10inch metal cut off wheel instead. It worked fine, but I kind of didn't think to account for the fact that the wheel is over 1/8th of an inch wide. After drawing your cut line, you need to be sure to line the correct side of the blade up with your marking. Otherwise, your length could be off by 1/8th inch per cut !! :mad:

My next problem is that in finding filler for the frame, I went with 1inch steel square tube from HD and a I believe a 1 inch aluminum angle. What I ran into is that the self tapping SS metal screws wouldn't go into the 1inch square tube, it was too thick/hard. So, I drilled what I thought was the right size pilot holes. Some of the screws went in nicely and are holding firm. With some of the screws, the heads stripped out before the screws were completely sunk in. Yet other screws snapped off completely causing even more problems. I'm going to have to go back in, cut some screw heads off, sand them all down, drill them out and then go back with larger pilot holes and larger screws. That or undo everything and replace the thick 1 inch square tube with thinner gauge tubing. (Completely open to any suggestions/advice that anyone could provide).

Luckily for me, I wanted to conceal things so the %^#%^$%^$'ed up screw job is fairly well hidden on the underside of the frame.


OK, all that out of way, here's what she looks like right now.



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It's a work in progress and there are definitely some issues still to be worked out. There's some slight outward flexing of the frame uprights, but no where near what I was expecting. I loaded the grill up with 3 paver bricks, 2 chimneys of charcoal, 8 ears of corn, 7 NY strips and 6 chicken breasts and everything held up fine. What is happening though is that the uprights want to move side to side more than I'd like. I'm going to try cutting down and attaching the front handle of the RK cart to see if this solves the problem. One small holdup right now is that one of the center bolt holes is about 1/4 inch off throwing things out of square. I might be able to just pull the bolt, drill a new hole and get things to line up right.

Also, as the picture shows, the lip of the grill is resting right on top of the tube caps and the bolt tabs. Not sure if I'm going to leave it there (but bend the tabs in a bit), or figure out a way to elevate the bowl a little. I thought about bolting some angle brackets right onto the tube caps and resting the bowl on them?
 
Wow that is coming along great. Looks great in the pictures too! I struggled with the thicker 1" steel tubing as well. I considered using some 1 by wood for ease of drilling. Might try that or even a piece of round wood if you could find the right diameter. The wood would be easy to drill into and should provide enough strength since it is just keeping the cut frame pieces together.

I like your angle iron idea on top of the frame caps. Not sure how you would secure it? Speaking of metal caps did you get those from Weber? eReplacment parts? I bought plastic tubing caps and they melted off where the lid bale contects to the kettle. Yeah plastic
And banking coals = no good.

Build looks great. Curious how the RK handle works out. Really would like to add one to mine but just can't figure out how to make that work with the stock RK handle the way it bends.

Keep up the good work and keep us posted as you progress.
 
Dave I think this is coming along very well, by the way all builds have something that goes wrong, Like Dustin mentioned, I like those metal caps on your up right legs and would like to find out where you got them.

As far as the screws go, you said that they are one the bottom right? Why not just use hand squeeze pop rivets. get the rivet you would to use and drill out the screw to that diameter, 1/8th or 3/16. no one will see them and they hold tight and solid.

Keep up the build and the photos it will be great to see the finished product doing a cook.
Kevin
 
Wow that is coming along great. Looks great in the pictures too! I struggled with the thicker 1" steel tubing as well. I considered using some 1 by wood for ease of drilling. Might try that or even a piece of round wood if you could find the right diameter. The wood would be easy to drill into and should provide enough strength since it is just keeping the cut frame pieces together.

I like your angle iron idea on top of the frame caps. Not sure how you would secure it? Speaking of metal caps did you get those from Weber? eReplacment parts? I bought plastic tubing caps and they melted off where the lid bale contects to the kettle. Yeah plastic And banking coals = no good.

Build looks great. Curious how the RK handle works out. Really would like to add one to mine but just can't figure out how to make that work with the stock RK handle the way it bends.

Keep up the good work and keep us posted as you progress.

Thanks Dustin. I'm not sure that anything round would work very well. I don't think it would keep the pieces from twisting. As it is, mine is packed pretty tightly with the square tube and angle iron, yet there's still a slight bit of movement. In all honesty, I might just leave the screws how they are since they are holding things in place as they are.




The angle brackets I'm thinking of are like this:

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or this:

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I would bolt them right to the top surface of the metal caps. The tips would sit right under the lip of the bowl. Another thought would be to use mending straps like this:


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I'd bolt the straps vertically to the upright frame tubes


BTW, those caps came from Weber and they were mighty proud of them :mad:. $5 each. But, ask the CSR nicely and you just might be able to get them for less.


WRT the RK handle, just eyeballing it, the whole thing will come down to how far apart your front legs are. It looks like I might be able to cut some of the tubing out and splice it all back together. But, it's going to be close.
 
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Dave I think this is coming along very well, by the way all builds have something that goes wrong, Like Dustin mentioned, I like those metal caps on your up right legs and would like to find out where you got them.

As far as the screws go, you said that they are one the bottom right? Why not just use hand squeeze pop rivets. get the rivet you would to use and drill out the screw to that diameter, 1/8th or 3/16. no one will see them and they hold tight and solid.

Keep up the build and the photos it will be great to see the finished product doing a cook.
Kevin


Thanks Kev. The caps are the RK caps from Weber. Part #87417. I thought about using pop rivets but I wasn't sure how tight or how well they would hold over all. As I've said before, this kind of stuff is way out of my wheelhouse. I figured that I'd give screws a try then if worst came to worst, I'd drill through top and bottom and run bolts all the way through. That or get some advice from you all :)
 
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Home Depot had some 3/4" aluminum square tube when I was getting the aluminum angle for my build.
But I was able to use some scrap tube from a Weber gas grill frame and the angle fit perfect in the Ranch frame. 8-12" should be sufficient to stand up to any weight we'll be putting on the frames.

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I used pop rivets and beefed up the cross bars underneath with angle braces. It's rock solid.

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Wish I had some pics of the bowl mounting to the frame, but I did use some 1/4" thick spacers that I C-clamped under the rolled lip of the bowl and leveled them to the frame and made my drill marks. But you can get an idea how high up (@ 1-1.5") instead of resting on the frame. Just slightly under the grill holder tabs. Any higher and the cook grate is a pita to R&R. I added a few washers to the backside of the slide aside holder so the nuts don't stick out so far-they are too close to the grate and had a habit of binding the grate when loading coals.

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I was able to get some square tube plugs from a local hardware store and they haven't melted yet. I use modified baskets and my hillbilly vortex for most cooks.

:ranchkettle:

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Dave the rivets will work very well , as you see in the picture from Brian put one on either side of your cut line and if you want to really make sure it is solid add another about a inch out board of the first and it will be rock solid.

I am looking for a CL 26er to do this build myself and this info is a real help, I am interested to see the ranch handle also.

Looking great so far.
 
I like the triangle brackets the best. Seems like they would look nice yet be functional as too fitting under the lip to support the kettle bowl.
 
Can you re-use the axle and wheels from the factory 26.75" configuration? I seriously need to get this done.
 
Can you re-use the axle and wheels from the factory 26.75" configuration? I seriously need to get this done.


Tony,

You can definitely reuse the wheels as those are what is in the picture. The "axle" of the 26'er is part of the triangle. I guess you could cut it off if you wanted. I haven't measured so I don't even know if it's the correct length or diameter for that matter so I have no idea if it would fit. I just bought a RK axle from Weber. IIRC, it was $5 or $10 ? I think I read that some others bought steel rod at their local hardware store and had it cut to size.
 
Tony, I ended up using aluminum rod from Home Depot for the axel. I didn't want to cut the all the pieces off of the original triangle to make it work and that way I could get a closer fit with the new frame. Pretty sure it was 3/16 rod and being aluminum it was easier to cut than steel. One suggestion is to buy new hub caps as the old ones get boogered up taking them off to remove the wheels. I got mine at eReplacment parts: http://www.ereplacementparts.com/we...ettle-grill-parts-c-193079_193086_193197.html come in a three pack and they ain't cheap at 11+ bucks plus shipping but totally worth it. Trust me the old ones will come off and you'll lose a wheel!
 
The caps were much less directly from Weber. One thing I've learned is when they tell you how much something is, ask them if that is the best price they can give you. Sometimes you might be able to get a discount.

Also, on the hub caps, if you have a local Ace hardware or the like who is a Weber dealer, ask them if they have any caps they can sell. The store here gives them to me for 85 cents each.
 
Not sure why I didn't post this before, but here's the parts list for the build.


Top frame for Ranch Kettle, Painted 85740 1
Bottom frame for Ranch Kettle, Painted 85750 1
Axle for Ranch Kettle 32.37" 85725 1
Locking caster, Genesis/Performer/Ranch/Platinum 6414 2
Replacement hubcaps (pack of 3) 987101 1
Aluminum tubing plug for Ranch Kettle 87417 4
Hex head screw, 1/4-20 x 3 inch, black 87410 1
--------

Cart handle for Ranch Kettle, Painted 85730 1
Hex nut 1/4-20 inch, zinc 87503 5
1/4" Flat nylon washer, black 87403 10
Hexhead bolt 1/4-20 x 1 3/4 inch 4086938 4



The parts listed under the dotted line aren't necessary if you drill holes in your kettle and mount it with bolts/nuts. Then again, the front handle probably isn't necessary for my build either, where the bowl just rests in the cart. It's pretty secure/stable as it is. But, I want added stability, especially for moving the cart/kettle around. Can't really use the front handle of the grill since it's not mounted.
 
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Dave ....use hand squeeze pop rivets. get the rivet you would to use and drill out the screw to that diameter, 1/8th or 3/16.

....

I used pop rivets and beefed up the cross bars underneath with angle braces. It's rock solid.

IMG_1628.jpg

Dave the rivets will work very well , as you see in the picture from Brian put one on either side of your cut line and if you want to really make sure it is solid add another about a inch out board of the first and it will be rock solid.


Hi guys, life has calmed down a bit and I'm back to this project. I still haven't cut down and installed the front RK handle yet as I wanted to get everything else corrected before I started chopping it up. One of my frame legs is about 1/4" longer than the other which is throwing things off just a bit. I need to take it apart, get some exact measurements and fix that problem. I've experienced a couple of issues with the uprights, flexing out, sliding and torquing just a bit. The flexing would appear to stem from the terrible job I did with the screws. If I grab the upright and pull back away from the center of the frame, I can see the cut seam expand. This isn't a big problem on the one frame leg piece that's shorter as there's enough of a lip on the grill to accommodate a bit of movement. On the leg that's 1/4" longer, that 1/4" is just enough that the bowl will drop through if the upright flexes. Taking out that 1/4" will definitely help, but I want to replace the screws with rivets which should help as well.

Without the front handle, the frame legs currently pivot around the center bolt tying them together. I'm thinking that the front handle will help with that, and also that in the rear, cutting the axle precisely will help lock the back two uprights in place. That said, I'm look at where the frame legs cross each other and wondering if I can add some kind of bracket there to keep them squared up. Was hoping to find some kind of bracket or something that would just slot in and lock the frame legs in without having to to use any fasteners. Another option would be to use right angle brackets and rivet them in place.


Speaking again of rivets, I started nosing around looking at rivets and realized that I'm once again in over my head. Do I want aluminum or steel rivets ? Also, I see different measurements listed, but I'm not sure exactly what they denote, i.e. the diameter of the pin ? The diameter that the drilled hole should be (outside diameter of the actual rivet)? Depth/length of the rivet ? On this last one, how much does the depth matter ? I know that it needs to be longer than the material that I'm trying to fasten together (the wall of the square tube of the frame, plus the wall of the square tube inside that and the wall of the angle iron, but does it hurt to be much too long ? For example, say that you were trying to fasten two pieces of metal that together were 1/4inch together, would a 1/2 inch long rivet work ?


Would appreciate any help / guidance that anyone would care to provide.

Thanks,

D
 
Dave use rivets of the same type material as your legs are made from reduces corrosion. You can add silicone (RTV) to the rivet flange as you install them this will keep water out also.
looking good Dave.
 
The mini Ranch project is both fun and practical. Your projects look great, I like the shelves. I'm still thinking about how I want to put shelves on mine. Every time I use mine I'm glad I have it. And when we've had guests over they always ask "what Weber is that and where did you get it?"
 
Dave use rivets of the same type material as your legs are made from reduces corrosion. You can add silicone (RTV) to the rivet flange as you install them this will keep water out also.
looking good Dave.

Thanks Kev. Where I will be doing some of the riveting, there's both steel as well as some aluminum angle :cool: Guess I will go with steel. Will grab RTV as well.
 
Dave that is correct go with the steel and the RTV will portect the two different surfaces.
looking very good by the way love your last cook on it.
Kev.
 

 

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