Alexander Rijkee wrote:Thank you for this very informative video!
I have some questions about the design, Is this the right tread for that? Of do you want to keep this confined to the DVD about the design instead of the design itself? If so please direct me to a more appropriate tread...
The build of the oven is very elegant. I love the way you use the treads in one of the inlets to mount the latch. What I was confused by is the way the outer barrel is cut. The lengthwise cut is placed at the top and then requires quite some fiddling to fix and make gas-tight-ish again. Why not do that at the bottom where you have to fiddle around to make the entrance for the heat riser anyway. presumably the hottest gasses got to the top where you want the outer barrel to be as sturdy as possible. Any reason I am overlooking for this choice?
While the oven is a thing of beauty is also looks absolutely massive. How would this design cope with downsizing to 2 30 gallon barrels? How much smaller would the J tube have to be to not overheat it?
Kind regards,
Xander
Hey Alexander,
Sorry it has taken so long to answer this. It's been about 2 weeks since I've been at a computer.
Make sure to complement Tim Barker on the latch idea. It's his idea (like all but very small details of the entire oven) and he's done a great job!
Regarding the outer barrel and the placement of the extra bridge of metal to span the gap made by cutting it lengthwise, the placement of that bridge material is a little arbitrary. I originally felt as you did that it would work best on the bottom, but what have found so far is that trying to deal with fitting that bridge material on the bottom in the same place as the opening for the heat riser ends up being a real pain. Another reason I like having the bridge material for the outer barrel at the top is it seems stronger to me. When I tried to put it on the bottom, all the weight of the oven and other materials ended up putting pressure on that bridge and putting stress on the connections, which I didn't like. One of the beauties of this design is that there is enough heat from the J-tube that it isn't necessary to worry about saving every BTU humanly possible, and the design is such that you don't see a detectable difference in oven temperature based on the placement of the outer barrel bridge. Since it seems structurally stronger on top, that's where I like to put it. But the oven should still work fine regardless of where you choose to be best on your own oven, so feel free to play around.
Regarding scaling things down, I don't have any direct experience on that myself, so everything from here on is guess work on my part. It seems to me that it ought to work ok, but have some extra challenges. You still need space around the inner barrel for exhaust to flow without getting choked up or blocked, and you will still need insulation around the outer barrel that will be the same thickness as for the larger version. So It may not end up looking all that much smaller (I haven't measured anything out on that, so I might be surprised). I'd have to check on a few things and talk to some colleges about scaling down the J-tube. It might be easy, or it might be tricky, I haven't tried it. But as the J-tube is already pretty small, it might be easier to use just run it with less wood in it instead.
I hope this helps.
Best wishes,
Tyler
