Building a barbecue

I've had the idea for a while now to take an old water heater tank and turn it into a barbecue for the farm.  We have never had a proper BBQ at the farm, instead using half a 55-gallon drum until it rusted out, with a rebar grid that had 10 cm between bars, not very handy to keep the meat out of the fire.

So, when the ministry scheduled a retreat for the last weekend in May, I offered that we could build a barbecue to be used at the retreat.  Since I was already teaching arc welding classes to the boys, it seemed like a natural project to fit into the classes.

I started the project myself, and then worked the boys into the project as time went along.

This is the water heater tank we started with.

I sliced it into three pieces using the oxy-actelyene cutting torch.

And welded two of the pieces together to form the pan for the BBQ.

Then added some legs and braces

And then got fancy with some air-injection pipes with control vavles

Up to this point, we'd used materials that were laying around the shop.  Then I had to buy some round bars to be able to make the upper grate for the meat and the lower grate to hold the fire off the bottom.

William Cruz welding the upper grate while Andres Castro observes.

Anderson Mora welding the lower grate.

Anderson (left), Andres (center), and William Cruz (right) showing off the results of their handiwork.

The BBQ was used very successfully both during the retreat and for many events since then.

I added later the following photo showing the BBQ in action at a luncheon held at a church in Bogotá for the benefit of the IMiC ministry:

The barbecue is working great!