1 oz. grill
- This topic is empty.
-
For those of you who are interested, I thought I would revive this thread and add pictures and commentary of my grill. I must say that my grill was highly influenced by this thread and the grilliput. The criteria I wanted my grill to meet were: lightweight (duh!), easily packable, legs for support (in case you can't find the rocks you need), can hold up a quart pot filled of water, and cheap.
Materials:
1/2" aluminum tubing (8 inches long): 1 oz.
3/4" aluminum tubing (8 inches long): 1 oz. – thinner wall because it's what I had.
#6-32 stainless steel all-thread (7 inches long x 4 legs): 1.3 oz.
15 Gauge stainless steel bike spokes (cut to 8 inches long x 4 spokes): .6 oz.
Total weight: 3.9 – 4 oz.
The manufacturing of the grill is self-explanatory, except that after I drilled small holes into the aluminum tubing for the legs, I tapped the tubing with a #6-32 tap so that the all-thread could just screw right into the tubing without having to use nuts to support the tubing.
With all-thread for legs, you can adjust the height of the grill to whatever's convenient at the time by just screwing in the all-thread more.
The 4 stainless steel spokes set up the way shown in the picture is for my convenience based on the size of the pot I use most of the time. The pot/cup in the picture is not the one I normally use, but I just put it on the grill to give some perspective. Displayed is a 32 oz. cup.
The grill packs away similar to the grilliput. Slide the 1/2" tubing into the 3/4" tubing, and then slide in the spokes and legs. I capped the two ends with 3/4" plastic leg tips, but you can use whatever you can find. However, make sure the caps go on the outside of the tubing, so that all the materials can pack away without hitting something on the inside of the tubing. Packed away, it's an 8" x 3/4" tube.
It weighs in at almost exactly 4 oz., and all the materials would cost someone around $10 (maybe less, maybe more). You can make it even lighter by changing the stainless steel to titanium, but it would cost more. Also, the amount of spokes you use will change the weight (.15 oz. per stainless steel spoke).
I haven't used it yet other than putting water in the pot and seeing how the grill handled the weight – no problem because of the smaller length of the spokes. How well will the aluminum hold up to the heat? I don't know yet, but I will find out this weekend. I'd assume it would take a lot of heat to affect it, and people do use aluminum pots. I'm not sure if there is a big difference between the aluminum used for pots and the aluminum used for tubing. If the aluminum isn't going to work out because of the heat of a fire, I'd probably switch to titanium, because stainless steel tubing is heavy.
Maybe this will give others some ideas, just as you all have given me plenty of ideas, and I welcome any suggestions or questions.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
