Finding a 16 gal barrel & burning the paint off

Hi All; Currently in the middle of a rebuild and my "walker" cast riser cracked while setting it back on the core ..... could be patched but the 16 gal barrel is rusted and I just don't trust it to hold. I have moved that riser off and on thru 2 previous cores and it finally said enough is enough! Off to town (120 mile rnd trip) Getting a stick of 8" sonitube was easy but when I went to the barrel store nothing but 55 gal... off to 3 other stores all over town ... OH NO , same story. Then I stopped at the quick lube place and sure enough , no problem how many do you need ... 10 bucks each! I have heard people complaining how hard it is to remove the paint from a barrel, Not So ... if you live in a rural area. Fill your barrel up with dry scrap wood debri and light it off... use a wire brush as the barrel heats up to loosen the paint , you can watch the clean line come down the sides of the barrel. 1 hour later your barrel will be paint free except for the bottom few inches. These are easily wire wheeled or hand torched off. Don't bang the barrel when its burning as it will dent . There is hardly any paint smell when doing this and you may be able to get away doing it in town if they allow debris burning.....or just wait till dark...

Thomas, if you want a cleaner barrel, that you don't have to wire wheel, wrap it into salvaged batt insulation. I use rockwool.

Thanks max; This barrel is an outer form for my riser, I could have left the paint on and let it burn off thru the system. I remove the paint on my 55 gal barrels this same way, I always cob over most of the outer barrel anyway and use high heat paint on the upper portion, so shiny doesn't matter much. I wanted to let newbies know that it can be as simple as possible to get started, the amount of information available can be overwhelming. Thru searching I have located stainless steel 55 gal barrels, the cost is outrageous... if anybody wants shiny they can have it, but its are not in my budget.

I never talked about shiny, just burning the last bits of paint

Never tried that before max , good info. thank you. I'll try that on the next one.