While I was busy with some Performer mods, I did a handy little mod to the Weber compact charcoal chimney today. My whole plan for this thing is to pack it in with the charcoal in a mini Kingsford Kaddie to take camping with WGA grill:
It's just perfect, except the handle sticks out so far that it takes up half the capacity of the mini Kingsford Kaddie. So after the first outing, I got the idea to make the handle removable.
Drilled out the pop rivets that hold the thing together and replaced them with 1/4-20 stainless steel bolt, washers, and nuts.
The wingnut (top) and hex nut bottom that you see, are the second nut on each bolt and used to attach the handle:
There wasn't enough clearance for the wingnut, but a little "engineering" with pliers bending the you-know-what out of the handle got the necessary clearance for the wingnut instead of having to tighten a hex nut by hand at the campsite. I'll be replacing the bottom hex nut with a second stainless steel hex nut (Home Depot only had one!).
Now, the chimney sits right at the top of the Kaddie with the handle resting on top. At the campsite, it takes about 30 seconds to attach the handle.
I thought about cutting the handle brackets and installing bolts/wingnuts to make the handle pivot to the side for storage. That would probably be a cleaner way to do the mod, but it was going to take more cutting and drilling. This was pretty easy. Really easy once I got the rivets drilled out.
It's just perfect, except the handle sticks out so far that it takes up half the capacity of the mini Kingsford Kaddie. So after the first outing, I got the idea to make the handle removable.
Drilled out the pop rivets that hold the thing together and replaced them with 1/4-20 stainless steel bolt, washers, and nuts.
The wingnut (top) and hex nut bottom that you see, are the second nut on each bolt and used to attach the handle:
There wasn't enough clearance for the wingnut, but a little "engineering" with pliers bending the you-know-what out of the handle got the necessary clearance for the wingnut instead of having to tighten a hex nut by hand at the campsite. I'll be replacing the bottom hex nut with a second stainless steel hex nut (Home Depot only had one!).
Now, the chimney sits right at the top of the Kaddie with the handle resting on top. At the campsite, it takes about 30 seconds to attach the handle.
I thought about cutting the handle brackets and installing bolts/wingnuts to make the handle pivot to the side for storage. That would probably be a cleaner way to do the mod, but it was going to take more cutting and drilling. This was pretty easy. Really easy once I got the rivets drilled out.
