Lonzinomaker
Member
This is a brief "How I did it" for making the tray/boats from flashing instead of using aluminum foil.
I hope it is not to hard to follow. I didn't want to do a step by step instructable because that would be to long for this forum.
I use aluminum flashing that I buy from Home Depot to make boats/trays instead of using aluminum foil. The flashing lasts forever, it is stronger and looks nicer than foil. The flashing can be cut with a retractable blade utility knife by scoring heavily and bending, just like sheetrock. Or you can use tin snips, poultry shears or even heavy scissors. To bend the flashing I use wide bladed vise grips (search Amazon for vise grip sheet metal tool) and a 2X6 as fulcrum to help get a straight bend. I also use a straight edge metal ruler to get straight lines when scoring and a sharpy for laying out lines. The cut edges on the flashing is very sharp, so I use sandpaper to soften the edges and also fold over and crimp the sides so they are stronger and I won't cut myself when using the trays. Caveat: I am not a tin smith so these are fairly crude, but they are cheap and work very well to keep wood from combusting. I put the smoke box on the flashing and trace the outline for sizing the trays. I make 2 trays that together will cover about 2/3 of smoke box. And I make on longer one that covers 1/2 of box for a smoke when I use less wood like when doing jerky.
Pic #1 shows the layout lines.
#2 shows the first bend and how I push the grips against a board to make the bend straight and tight on line.
#3 shows the ends bent.
#4 shows the sides formed and start of corners being joined.
#5 is a closeup of corner and how I fold over the long end onto short end to crimp and keep the sides at a 90 deg bend.
#6 shows the completed tray.
The last picture shows a couple of my first attemps that weren't very pretty, but they worked.
I hope it is not to hard to follow. I didn't want to do a step by step instructable because that would be to long for this forum.
I use aluminum flashing that I buy from Home Depot to make boats/trays instead of using aluminum foil. The flashing lasts forever, it is stronger and looks nicer than foil. The flashing can be cut with a retractable blade utility knife by scoring heavily and bending, just like sheetrock. Or you can use tin snips, poultry shears or even heavy scissors. To bend the flashing I use wide bladed vise grips (search Amazon for vise grip sheet metal tool) and a 2X6 as fulcrum to help get a straight bend. I also use a straight edge metal ruler to get straight lines when scoring and a sharpy for laying out lines. The cut edges on the flashing is very sharp, so I use sandpaper to soften the edges and also fold over and crimp the sides so they are stronger and I won't cut myself when using the trays. Caveat: I am not a tin smith so these are fairly crude, but they are cheap and work very well to keep wood from combusting. I put the smoke box on the flashing and trace the outline for sizing the trays. I make 2 trays that together will cover about 2/3 of smoke box. And I make on longer one that covers 1/2 of box for a smoke when I use less wood like when doing jerky.
Pic #1 shows the layout lines.
#2 shows the first bend and how I push the grips against a board to make the bend straight and tight on line.
#3 shows the ends bent.
#4 shows the sides formed and start of corners being joined.
#5 is a closeup of corner and how I fold over the long end onto short end to crimp and keep the sides at a 90 deg bend.
#6 shows the completed tray.
The last picture shows a couple of my first attemps that weren't very pretty, but they worked.
