Are clip top food use metal barrels suitable for RMH??

Hi all,

Our RMH is due a service this year and I'm about to break it down enough to remove the barrel. I've seen pics of barrels linked with clips so the bottom third is built in and the top 2/3 can be unclipped for cleaning. That is my dream! However, I can't find suitable clips. (I have done some searches of the fora and am not finding anything related to my questions)
Today, I found an ad (fairly) locally for food grade 200L Barrels with removable clip tops and I'm posting to find out if anyone has experience of using these in a rocket build. Any advice would be useful and appreciated.

At €15 euros each they wont break the bank and could be used for food storage so I'm going to get a couple.

My specific questions are:

has anyone used food grade barrels for a RMH -do they hold up vs oil barrels?

Any ideas where I can get clips for joining barrels here in europe?

Any other strategies for making removal and clean-out less of a major event?

Many thanks in advance to anyone who can advise/help

Lesley

I think a steel drum is pretty much a steel drum and you should have no problems using these.

I don't use a metal band "clip" to hold two barrels together, I have just made a ledge for the barrel to sit on, put a layer of thermal cob on this ledge and then while still wet, place the barrel on it so it sinks in a bit. When dry, it holds the barrel in place quite well. A few fires later, ash builds up enough on the inside to fill in any minor gaps so that it for sure doesn't leak any exhaust into the room.
At first I tried using a piece of stove gasket rope but it just was more complex to get it to seal just right as it was hard to get it to be the correct diameter and level enough to work properly.  

Hi Phil, Thanks for posting. Now we have the new barrels, they seem slightly lighter weight than the oil drums, and with a hermetic seal, too good to 'waste' on the RMH!

Gerry, thanks for posting. what you say seems logical and made me think about leaving the lower one third of the drum in place (that's got the manifold connected to it) and cutting off the top two thirds. Resetting it as you describe and then building up the sides with clay mix. I'm going to paste this into a new thread to see if others have tried/had success with this method!

Thanks for your help with this both of you

Lesley