Phase 2-Let the Re-Design begin!
Ok, so we had to engage the services of a Possibly Certified Grill Construction Consultant.
Fortunately, we were able to secure the help of John Francis, metal man extrordinaire, and hereafter referred to the IronDog. He was quite dissatisfied with our original design. He felt that the row of embedded rebar that we were going to use as a wood shelf had 2 issues: 1. It would actually introduce a weak area, and due to the expansion of the metal when a fire was burning, possibly lead to cracking, the arch enemy, the nemesis of this project. 2. Rebar is basically recycled slag, so it will eventually burn through, and our shelf might only last 50 years, instead to the 500 that a good pit should last.
He also advised against using "too much steel"...TOO MUCH STEEL?? Impossible! That's like "too much sex"...it doesn't exist. One can not have too much steel in a project. But, since we had paid so much for his services, we took at least some of his advice.
John was also able to fabricate our custom front and back doors. Here they are in their rough form. Once painted and ready to install, the fit and workmanship was pretty amazing!
Around this time, Bill decided to expand the project. He rightly determined that a simple grill was no fun, and not that useful, so he designed a table-top that extended the usable space, and make a rim around the edge to the grill to set things on. Here it is with most of the framing done.
Several small details should be noted.
If you look at the corners and partway down the sides you will notice some small 2x4 blocks. It was originally thought that this would give a nice, "custom" touch to the corners. However, it became apparent that the odds of getting this to turn out correctly was low. It was likely that we could knock the corners off when we removed the forms, to the 2x4 were removed.That is all I have time for now...
NEXT TIME
LET THE POURING BEGIN!!!
