I found an old file cabinet. I was having lunch with a very good friend of mine the other day and was telling him about my plan to make a smoker out of an old file cabinet. He said that he had an old beat up one in his office and was planning on getting rid of it. He had several other file cabinets in a storage building near his office. He said that if I helped him move the new one from his storage unit to his office I could have the old one. So we stopped at his house and picked up a dolly and drove the 2 blocks to the storage unit. He lives right in town. He had it full of old furniture and other treasures, the 4 file cabinets were of course at the back of the storeage unit. After moving a bunch of chairs, an antique love seat and some other stuff we could get to the file cabinets. He of course didn't want the 1st one, so we moved it out of the way and took the 2nd one in the row. After putting everything back into the storage unit we drove the 1/2 block to his office. Unloaded the new file cabinet from his truck and then took all of his files from the old unit and moved the new one into place and replaced all of his files. He then said he would deliver the old file cabinet to my place. I told him he did not have to do that, but like I said he is a good friend. We got it to my place and unloded it into my garage. It was a fairly newer unit, light weight metal, not one of the older heavier units, but oh well, it was FREE.
The handles were all broken and a couple of the drawer fronts were bent up a bit but I do not think it will leak too much smoke, and even if it does, Oh Well.
I went to a store that sells salvage building materials in town and found a floor register cover with a damper built in, it was maked $8.50 but had a mark on it so they gave it to me for $5. Today I drove to the Bog Box store about 15 miles away and bought 4 new handles that I thought would fit and some hack saw blades and a metal drill bit. The handles were about $2.39 each. So now I have about $15 into the unit. Here are some pictures.
This is what I started with.
First I drilled 2 holes in the top and cut out for the top vent with the sabor saw useing a hack saw metal cutting blade. I kept it off to one side so that if I get an electronic temperature probe it will have room to sit on top. { Thats my story and I'm sticking to it, it wasn't that I miss measured and cut the hole in the wrong spot,
My neighbor had some wheels that he gave me so that I can build a wooden frame for under it and move it around easily.
Next I started to cut the bottoms out of the drawers with a metal blade in my sabor saw. I left a bit of a metal ledge all around the drawers. I also left in the cented brace. When I cut out the bottoms I left a lip the width of the center brace and bent it over so that the brace had twice the metal on the sides for increased strenght.
I bent the lip over with a small pair of vice grips, them beat on it with a ballpeen hammer, and finally krimped it over with a larger set of vice grips.
I got the 3 drawer bottoms cut out as well as cutting the hole in the top today. Went through several blades in the process. I think I was in too much of a hurry, pushed things too hard and broke the blades. I got to the point where I realized that this didn't have to be rocket science, and neatness really didn't count for much, lol, its a smoker for goodness sakes. Here is a picture of the 3 drawers that I cut out. I did not cut out the bottom drawer because that is where the fire box will go.
Here are all the tools that I used for the project.
The drawer pulls that I bought are just a bit too narrow to fit in the holes in the drawers, Oh POOP. So I have to decide if I want to try and bore the holes a bit bigger and use washers or take them back and start from scrath. My next thing is to find metal grates of some sort for the bottom of the drawers. I looked at metal hardware cloth at the big box store. They had it in alum but it was pretty thin. I would love to find stainless steel at the local junk yard. I will run over there next week some time. I also have to build the wooden frame for the wheels. I think the frame will make it a little more stable because I am placing the wheels wider than the file cabinet. Not counting the time to haul the thing home and the 2 trips to the Big Box Store, [ I had to drive back there the 2nd time because my camera had fallen out of my pocket, when I called they said that someone had turned it in at the desk, sort of helps build your faith in mankind doesn't it? ] I have about 1/2 a day of my time invested so far and about $15 in cash money. The grates will cost some money, but I do not mind looking around for a bargan,
So Graham, you have the file cabinet, I am sure you have the tools, just find a day and make it happen, that is befor you start the rocket stove project of course,
Never doubt that a small group of dedicated people can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has.