I am now the proud owner of a WSM 18


 
Garry Milner

Garry Milner

TVWBB Member
Craigslist find and it's my first smoker. Therefore I am a total novice at smoking food but I see that there are volumes to read on here and hours upon hours of video to help me get started. I'm sure I will have some questions along the way to pit mastery (:)LOL:)) and I know I'm in the right place for answers. And it just so happens that one of my local grocery stores has pork butts on sale this weekend and I intend to snag a couple.

WSM 2.jpg
WSM 18.jpg
 
Yep, what Fletch said!
I just finished up my smokewood bin rack.
Picture to follow.
Oh, Garry…
”Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!”
Now that you have one of the best designed pieces of outdoor cooking tools, you will be tinkering with it for years. One key thing to remember at all times, good barbecue will not be rushed! “It will be done when it’s finished.” There are no shortcuts but, there are MANY methods. Take your time and enjoy the ride!
Always feel free to ask questions here, I have learned so much about technique and loads of good recipes from this forum.
 
Timothy F. Lewis said:
Yep, what Fletch said!
I just finished up my smokewood bin rack.
Picture to follow.
Oh, Garry…
”Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!”
Now that you have one of the best designed pieces of outdoor cooking tools, you will be tinkering with it for years. One key thing to remember at all times, good barbecue will not be rushed! “It will be done when it’s finished.” There are no shortcuts but, there are MANY methods. Take your time and enjoy the ride!
Always feel free to ask questions here, I have learned so much about technique and loads of good recipes from this forum.
Click to expand...
Absolutely!

I have already ordered some casters so I can roll it around on my patio, and I am going to try to make a custom wood lid handle that will hang over the lip of the middle section. More on that later .....

Thanks.
 
Garry Milner said:
I did watch it, pretty cool. But I was thinking of simply running the threaded stem
directly through the bottom of the leg as shown in this photo.

View attachment 59490


The 4" casters I bought are shown here. $30/set
View attachment 59494
Click to expand...
There's a couple of reasons I would not do that. If it's not completely level as the wheel swings around the height of the smoker changes on that side where the wheel is and it will lean.... Noticeably. The chances of getting it completely level on the bottom of a round aluminum leg is pretty bad.

When the wheel has swung under toward the smoker, it is less stable than it is normally with the leg, Id it will be more tippy. Moving the wheel farther outside of the leg because of this is a good idea

The next problem is that the legs aren't sturdy by themselves. They can be moved around. Using something that locks them all together helps support them in directions that they don't support themselves. In other words tying all three legs together makes it much much stronger. When rolling it it does put a lot of stress on the legs when you roll over pebbles debris etc.

I started out with 3 in casters in recently switched them to 5 in........ Bigger is better.

There's lots of ways to tie them together but I can show you how I did it, not that I expect anybody else would do it this way. I took some scrap steel I had that was left over from something else, made a three-way brace that was welded together in the middle under the smoker. Then I cut some little pieces and bent it with heat to match the curve of the legs and use the existing bolt hole in the back of the leg to attach and support it. Then bolted it all together. Later on the middle section of that support had to drill a hole through the middle of it to put my air pipe for my blower when I decided to put it in the bottom.
 

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MartinB said:
There's a couple of reasons I would not do that. If it's not completely level as the wheel swings around the height of the smoker changes on that side where the wheel is and it will lean.... Noticeably. The chances of getting it completely level on the bottom of a round aluminum leg is pretty bad.

When the wheel has swung under toward the smoker, it is less stable than it is normally with the leg, Id it will be more tippy. Moving the wheel farther outside of the leg because of this is a good idea

The next problem is that the legs aren't sturdy by themselves. They can be moved around. Using something that locks them all together helps support them in directions that they don't support themselves. In other words tying all three legs together makes it much much stronger. When rolling it it does put a lot of stress on the legs when you roll over pebbles debris etc.

I started out with 3 in casters in recently switched them to 5 in........ Bigger is better.

There's lots of ways to tie them together but I can show you how I did it, not that I expect anybody else would do it this way. I took some scrap steel I had that was left over from something else, made a three-way brace that was welded together in the middle under the smoker. Then I cut some little pieces and bent it with heat to match the curve of the legs and use the existing bolt hole in the back of the leg to attach and support it. Then bolted it all together. Later on the middle section of that support had to drill a hole through the middle of it to put my air pipe for my blower when I decided to put it in the bottom.
Click to expand...
Martin I am going to go ahead and agree with you. After watching Chris' video again that's the route I'm going to take.
A trip to Lowes and a little elbow grease and I'll have a stable, removable triangular rolling base for my smoker. Thanks for posting!
 
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