Brit Pig Build

[Ben]

I first came across an "OZ Pig" last year at the Billing LandRover show, and was very impressed.

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=11591&hilit=billing&start=20

i had the intention of making one when i first saw it, but have been super busy since then and completely forgot about it.

fast forward 8 months and i find myself at the British indoor 4x4 show, where they had one on display. so i picked up a leaflet, and again i had the idea of making one.

so there £250 to buy. mine will be made as cheaply as possible, but id guess about £20.

so i got a gas cylinder from my mate today. we unscrewed the valve off the top and filled the cylinder with water to display the last little bit of gas.

a word of warning here, be VERY careful if you try this. not only can the valves shoot off at an unbelievable velocity, but inhaling the gas can be very bad for your health.

my mate has been doing this for a while now as hes been making very simple patio type log burners and selling them.

in this time he has smashed a neighbours green house with a valve shooting off into the sky. and most worrying of all he ended up in hospital with gas poising!

so my cylinder.

so the handle will be cut off and the stand/base piece will be cut off the other side.
i will then cut 3-4" out of the middle and then weld the 2 pieces back together.

the door will then be cut and hinged on what would have been the top of the cylinder, and the small hole where the valve was will be left in the middle of the door. this is the same as the OZ pigs which are also made from old gas cylinders. this hole will act as a draw for the fire.

 

[Ben]

forgot to say, one of the features i like is that the legs, and chimney and all the other bits fit inside the when its not being used, making transportation and storage nice and easy.

my mate says he can get his log burner cylinders very hot very quickly and easily, to the point where the whole cylinder starts glowing!

i intend to use mine on camping trips and for all my cooking at Lincomb!

 

[hairyguy4]

i'll be keeping an eye on this i've got 2 of those cylinders at the moment, ones going to be part of a smoker and the other is spare, although i have recently made a bbq out of a fire extinguisher lol

 

[Chris]

Are you going to hot smoke or cold smoke? I can do both and they are very different. I did some hot smoked salmon and I reckon it was even better than cold. You need less time in the smoke than you might think for some foods. I did try smoking an orange once (yes hard to light ha ha) and it was quite possibly the worst think I have ever tasted


Hey Ben, handy of you can include a small water boiler on the back with a tap on the bottom. If for nothing else than washing up at the end.

Chris

 

[Ben]

thanks guys.

not even thought about smoking Chris. i was just thinking build a pig for cooking bacon sausage and eggs in a morning on, then maybe cooking a pot of pasta on in the evening for dinner, oh and boiling a kettle!

i used to work in a joinery shop about 5 years ago making hardwood windows and doors and we used to end up with huge bags of shavings off the dust extractors.

a chap used to come in every few weeks and wed give him all the bags, oak, ash, beach, etc. and in return wed get a huge box of smoked fish's and meat.

some of it tasted so good!

so maybe smoking is something i could do.

regarding the back boiler, its an interesting idea, and something i hadnt thought of. but i want to keep it nice and simple, and if ive got the pig hot, then a pot of water/kettle wont take very long to get hot for washing up.

once ive got it built i will need to set it up and light it and get it really nice and hot, so that all the powder coating on the cylinder drips off.
once this has been done i can paint it with black high heat paint!

 

[Chris]

Sorry Ben, the smoking comment was @ Hairyguy on the post above yours. Smoking you tea would perhaps be a bit slow if you were hungry mate.

Chris

 

[Ecoman]

We have a hot smoker and its excellent. Its basically a 3' x 2' x 2' stainless box with legs, a rack and drip tray inside and a lid. The shavings are thrown in the bottom and spread about and a large 2 ring gas burner is lit and placed under the box. I can hot smoke a 4 whole, halved chickens in 1 hour to the point that the meat is falling off the bones. Great for an alternative to the BBQ and especially great after a good days fishing on the boat in the summer. We end up with mst of the village round at our house eating smoked mackerel and salad

we have some space in the back garden and we were thinking of building a cold smoker. I have the plans drawn up already I just need to get the materials together.


I'm liking the pig idea. Going to keep an eye on this topic

 

[Ben]

did an hour on this tonight.

used a thin 1mm disc in the grinder, and removed the handle from the top.

followed by the base/stand.

which left me with a cylinder. at this point i couldnt decided if i actually needed to cut any out of the middle or not.

so decided to crack on with the door instead.

cleaned the old welds off, where the handle was fixed, using a flapwheel disc in the grinder.

i then looked around for something circular the right size to mark around for my door.

found an old army billy can and drew around it.

i then had a look in my hinge drawer. after having a good rummage and ignoring a lot of the hinges as they were made of brass or stainless steel, both of which i cant weld with the rods ive got. i had 4 options available to me.

i soon realised because of the size of the circle i would be cutting out, i need a short a hinge as possible.

so i settled for a chunky square hinge. this is actually designed to be welded on because the leaves of the hinge have no holes for screws, there also nice and thick.

used a half worn 4.5" disc in the grinder, again a thin 1mm thick one, i started to cut the circle out, just where i wanted to position the hinge.

positioned the hinge and tack welded it in place.

i then cut the rest of the way around the circle. i cut with the grinder on an angle, so that the piece i was cutting out, that will form the door, cannot physically fit through the hole.

checked the door opens and closes nicely.

i then fully welded the hinge to both the pig and the door.

had to keep turning the pig around, so that i was always welding horizontal, this constant repositioning meant i was able to get perfect welds with my arc welder!

i got really good penetration with my welds, as can be seen on the inside of the door!

very pleased with how the welds came out.

next job will be cutting a section out of the middle and welding it back together.

need to get a meter of 2.5" tube for the chimney, and possibly some nuts and bolts that will be used for the screw on legs.

 

[Olazz]

This is an interesting project to watch Ben; perhaps a daft question, but why do you need to cut anything out of the middle section and re weld?

 

[Ben]

thanks.

while mainly because im copying the OZ pig version, and theres is a lot more round, than cylindrical if that makes sense.

also because i want it to take up as least amount of space as possible when being transported. inside i need to be able to fit 4 x 300mm legs and 3 x 300mm pieces of 2.5" chimney pipe.

 

[sae70]

Looking good Ben

It's a shame that you want the legs removable, I've seen them made using the ring that you've cut from off of the bottom, cut into two arches and welded to the base as legs Have a look on YouTube there's loads of info about them on there. Also look up 'Rocket Stoves' and 'Rocket Bio heat mass..........' Mmmmmmm Bugger can't remember what they're called You'll find them I'm sure, very interesting

I Just remembered having seen one that used an old brake disc as a pan stand on top I wonder where you'd find one of those

 

[Ben]

Looking good Ben

It's a shame that you want the legs removable, I've seen them made using the ring that you've cut from off of the bottom, cut into two arches and welded to the base as legs Have a look on YouTube there's loads of info about them on there. Also look up 'Rocket Stoves' and 'Rocket Bio heat mass..........' Mmmmmmm Bugger can't remember what they're called You'll find them I'm sure, very interesting

I Just remembered having seen one that used an old brake disc as a pan stand on top I wonder where you'd find one of those

thanks Steven.

could always make another one without removable legs. more of a permanent patio one. i cant believe how little time this one has taken so far.

i will have a look at those vids.

ive got a brand new brake disc thats covered in cracks. and a brand new 16" modular thats got huge rounded out holes where the studs go.

would be nice to use them, not sure i can bring myself to throw them away.

 

[karl webster]

I Have a permanent one in one of the sheds with a 4inch flue. As per usual i never finished it but it works ok. I used it with waste oil but couldnt controll it,turned out to be a massive fire ball so just use it as a log burner when i can get to it.

I did have a look and a read about the pig at the show and i was thinking myself. Just think gas bbq would be so much quicker

Looking forward to seeing it in action though ben

karl

 

[Andrew Prince]

Nice work, Ben - impressive skills cutting such a neat circle with the grinder

 

[Matt Wright]

Bravo Ben - very cool project

 

[Sam]

Nice!

One day you'll share the plans for that time machine you clearly have!

 

[Ben]

thanks guys.

i could have taken it work and used the plasma cutter, but decided to try it with the grinder and it worked perfectly!

so today i needed a piece of 12mm thick plate to weld to the end of an RSJ on an extension were building, so i drove to the local metal scrap yard and spent half an hour wondering around looking for a piece of plate.

its a great place and i could spend hours there wondering around. theyve got loads of old cars, bull dozers, diggers, bus's, trains, and everything else that you can think of thats made of metal.

they stack any usable lengths of metal that come in in piles. so theres piles of box section, angle, tube, RSJ's etc.

so while i was there i found a 1.2 meter length of 2.5" galvanised tube, which is nice and thick at 3-4mm wall. the chap weighted it, and charged me £4. this will be my chimney

so back to the pig.

i thought about how would be the most accurate way of marking and cutting a piece out of the centre of the cylinder, and this is what i came up with...........................

i decided to cut along the edge of the seem down the middle of the cylinder, as i guessed this would be straight.

i then used a combination square and a pen to mark a line 100mm in all the way around.

sat it on the old base to keep it stable while cutting.

and cut along the line.

put the 2 pieces together to see how well they fitted. they fitted perfectly!

used a flap wheel in the grinder to clean off the remains of the welds where the base was attached.

cleaned the edge up on both pieces to remove any sharp burrs, and also to remove any powder coating where i wanted to weld.

put the pieces together and tack welded them together.

i then sat it on the bench and checked i was happy with the size the pig will be.

supported it in the vice and began welding it all the way around.

all done.

i acquired a few off cuts of galvanised handrail today off the scrap pile at work.

quite big stuff for what i want it for. (the pigs legs)

the tube is a bit bigger then id originally wanted, but then i had an idea!

found some bolts that the heads are a perfect fit inside the tube!

cut a piece of stainless steel tube, which just fits over the bolt. this is to protect the threads from splatter while i weld the bolts into the tube.

only got 3 legs done tonight.

so next job will be too finish welding the bolt in the last leg.

then i will cut all the bolts that are in the legs down, so that they extend from the tube, the amount they will sit inside the nut minus a few mm.

then i will weld 4 nuts to the underside of the pig, and screw the legs on!

then i need to make the hot plate and chimney!

so total cost so far £4!

 

[Andrew Prince]

Nice progress Any reason why you wouldn't go with 3 legs rather than 4? 3 legs are stable on an uneven surface, whereas 4 legs require an even surface. I guess as the legs will be adjustable with the bolt connection, you can adjust for uneven surfaces

 

[Ben]

thanks.

interesting idea.

id only thought 4 legs, because thats what the OZ pig has.

id say that my pig will mainly be used on uneven ground, ie. when camping.

although if i like it as much as i suspect i might, and it does get up to temp as quickly as i suspect it might, then i could see myself sitting out on the patio, on a warm summers night, with a cold beer cooking a nice big steak on the hot plate. mmm.........steak and beer.

 

[Olazz]

Ben,

How's the Pig getting on?