Pig roaster

[tmcmellon]

New user here. I got this 6 ft x 24 compressor tank from my work three years ago with the intention of building a pig roaster. At the beginning of this summer, I figured it was time to get working on it.
I lived in San Diego for many years and had a permanent pit in the ground to cook full size pigs in. The soil was decomposed granite and was like concrete, so it stayed intact. Here in Connecticut, that's not the case, so I decided to build an above ground roaster.
I wanted the fire box to be in the rear though. When we bought a piece of equipment at work that came on a 52" square steel table that was a little too high but was going to be scrapped, I grabbed it. I shortened the height of the table and added some steel wheels from Tractor supply. I then found an old wood stove on Facebook market place that was tailor made to be the fire box for 50$. I cut the back out of the wood stove and a hole in the tank, and made a duct to connect the two. I put a piece of 3/16 thick expanded metal in the duct the keep wood or lump charcoal out of the cooking chamber.
I wanted to have a rotisserie to spin a small pig or pork shoulder on and after many designs floating around in my head, I settled on this one. It's all 304 Stainless with bronze saddles that the axles spin on.
There are two sheets of 304 expanded metal that the meat is sandwiched between. The motor is something I found on craigslist. Brand new on Grainger it is $360 and it was new in the box for $125.
The output rpm is 4.2 rpm and I wanted half that, so I did it with a 3" and 6" pulley. I made two chimneys on either end of the tank with choke valves, but right after the first test fire I realized that I needed another one in the center of the door to get the convection right. I lucked out as this new center chimney worked out as the door stop I was looking for.
Three weeks ago I cooked a 28.5 lb pig which fit perfectly in the rotisserie after I took the head off. I learned pig cooking from a good friend who learned from somebody in Hawaii. This involves coating the chest cavity with honey and filling the chest cavity with quartered oranges, then sewing the chest up tight with .020 stainless wire. I have never done it any other way. I bring the internal temp up to 195, and the pork falls off the bone.
I don't know how many pics I can post here, but you can visit my facebook page if you search thomas mcmellon which shows more pics of the build during the previous three months.
I ended up building an expanded metal basket to keep lump charcoal in and cutting a hatch in the top of the firebox to make it easier to load charcoal in to it. This project chewed up my whole summer, but it seems to work pretty good.
I had to put together a work station to handle the rotisserie while I was loading the pig on or getting it off.

[GRailsback]

Post some pictures of it.

[spacetrucker]

Greetings and welcome to the forum...
I did look you up on facebook, did not want to copy and paste any pictures, but looks interesting and fantastic from what I saw, I will leave the picture posting up to you.
I found you at: https://www.facebook.com/thomas.mcmello ... 1569080242
for any of those that want to see what I found...
Do post often and include pictures....