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So I had this idea....

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  • So I had this idea....

    Sometime back, I bought a McCall warmer/proofer from a school system auction for around $85 including the auction fees. What I liked about this unit was the heating element was on top, and two fans ducted air across the element and down a channel on the right side of the inside of the cabinet with a series of louvers to distribute the recirculate the heated air through the cabinet. It's basically a convection warmer. All stainless exterior and interior. It has a ton of brackets and is set up to hold full sized pans with room on all sides for air circulation. This was the only one like this I had seen, and this looked perfect for conversion to a smoker for snack sticks and sausage smoking. Fans work, but heating element does not energize (I have not traced the circuit to see if the element is good or if the problem is the thermostat of high limit switch). I will convert to PID in the build anyway.

    Only problem is this sucker is huge. I mean it is like over 7 1/2 feet tall. So between that and the dread of having to pull the blown in foam insulation out, I've sort of just let this sit in a corner and gather dust. Last night I was wondering if I could just use the stainless from the unit as donor panels to custom make up a smaller version.

    Then today I came up with a novel idea which may or may not be workable. Why cannot I cut say 2 feet out of the cabinet at the bottom and have the stainless re-welded at the base to make a shorter cabinet? Do any of you have any rough estimates of what that sort of welding might run? I presume it's 304 stainless since it's food service grade. Would be a lot less work than completely building a cabinet from scratch and would be a fairly straight forward conversion.

    So am I crazy or is this going to be cost prohibitive?

    This is the cabinet. Door is off and the side louver panel is off, but you get the general idea of what I'm dealing with.



    This is an illustration of how the flow of air/smoke works and I added a pellet tray for proof of concept only (design may change)



    Dave

    I love coming home. My back porch smells just like a BBQ joint.....


  • #2
    Instead of cutting & welding, why not cutting oot the section you feel needs to go & leaving a couple extra inches & overlap one section over the other & just pop-rivet the sections together? You could use food-grade silicone or heat rated silicone, whichever you think would be best, to seal things up. Just a thought.
    .

    Not to mention the occasional campfire

    My --->
    Paul

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    • #3
      Ah leave it full size.......bigger is always better...... I actually would leave the insulation on the box side and maybe just replace the stuff around the heating elements.

      The actual wire harnesses get brittle after a few years and are prone to failure.

      Why not use the original controls if they you can find the problem?

      Nice setup I have a crescore that has the heating stuff on the bottom instead of the top

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      • #4
        Looking at the cabinet you "may" be able to take a few feet from the top instead. look to see how the heating box is attached. They make 4 foot and 3 foot warmers

        The bottom would be a pain. Stainless is a a pain to cut anyway. If it were mine I would plasma cut it but it will probably still warp and blue at the edges.

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        • #5
          I can understand why you might want it a bit smaller, but the cost and hassle would make me seriously consider leaving it full size. And why would you want to remove the insulation?

          Looks like an interesting project. Keep us posted.
          sigpic
          "Once I thought I was wrong, but I was mistaken."
          Tom, smoker of meats and fine cigars
          UDS, Viking grill

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