Early this morning I headed to the back yard with RTV and veggie oil in hand. When I raised the lid to start I spied some nasty little weld beads that I had, in my haste to get some ribs going, overlooked.
Here is one after grinding it down. May not seem like much, but add three or four around the lip and you are never going to seal it.
Then I went to town with the RTV:
After hitting the formed seal with a heat gun I fired it up for a test run. It was better....but it still just seemed to have an exponential temp curve and sailed by 250 after I shut it down at 200!
So, off to the the big blue home improv store. Sad little hardware section, but they had the basics I needed to build two these:
A final test run and ...Score!
Once again, time and temperature are mine to control! Even with a super tight seal this drum runs so much different from my old one. The main differences has to be the three vents on the top along with a total wire basket. My old basket had a solid bottom and sides that were drilled out with 1" holes here and there which was more restrictive on air.But the main thing is, 225 was dialed in and held steady for 3hrs. Next stop- Brisketville!