Close locker's metal louvres?

Hi everybody.

After procrastinating for a while on the bench modification on my stove.

I have found an old vintage locker of my liking.

I want to use it horizontally like on the picture. On slabs of air entrained concrete, and covered with bricks.

But having only one brain, i quite like to have ideas other than mine.

How would you close the louvers, and airtight the door?

What would you do for a cleanout?

Thomas? Since you like your metalworking.

What a great upcycle idea!

I guess you could take off the door and weld a sheet over the hole, or if you want to keep the look, weld a sheet to the inside of the door frame.

Then again, you could just run some ducting through like a traditional cob bench and stuff the rest of the space with thermal mass. (Screw the door shut when done to keep curious guests from opening it and spilling all over the floor.)

Just some ideas.  Post pics of what you come up with!

The easy way would be a hammer and flatten them back flat!

Hi Max;
I see many ways to utilize that locker as a bell.
I can only assume that you want  to keep the original look on the front.
The louvers would need to be covered on the inside, possibly by welding plates over or as simple as tin foil and metal duct tape.

Sealing the door  depends on how it is built.
If the door sits against  a flat plate, than superwool gasket would seal it up.
If the door has no "seat" to land on then stuffing with superwool or nicely welding the crack  shut would do the trick.

For a cleanout.  
Myself, I would try to keep the door hinged and have access to the entire bell .
You could dry stack brick directly inside the door as part of the  mass.
Easy to remove when accessing the bell.
Or you could cut a hole in an end/side  and make a larger removable "patch" .to cover it.

Thanks a lot Thomas and Fox.


Well, i want to use it as a "chassis" for the bricks. I want the mass outside, not inside. The one i have is a smidge more recent than the one on the pic. It sure would be good to have a cleanout. But i would really like to cover the whole thing with bricks.

Flattening the louvres, and brazing these. I don't have a tig or mig. Just modern stick inverter. And an oxy acetylene torch. IIRC the door has a metal ledge to rest on. But i just thought, i could make a brick wall behind the door. To support the top, and leave a space at one end of the wall, for the cleanout.

The top could also be dry stacked bricks, if i made a frame of angle iron of the right dimension,  tacked to the locker's metal.

I quite like Orange's bench, over at donkey's



https://donkey32.proboards.com/thread/2366/project-170mm-7inches-ceramic-cooker?page=7