VIDEO TIPS FOR MAKING THE FIREBOX*

In this video I want to give you some tips on how you can take a concrete well

tile and some well tile caps and turn it into the firebox you need for your

smokehouse. So this is the well tile here it's a factory cast concrete quite

durable and strong and long-lasting and the size isn't too important 24 inch 30

inches fine. Inside you can see a grate here that's just to lift the burning

wood up off the floor a little bit to give it some more air. The floor in this

case is a concrete well tile. You could also just pour a slab of concrete on the

bottom and then put the well tile on top if you prefer. Here's the concrete well

tile lid. All of this is very straightforward. The tricky bits are the

door opening that you'll need to cut and an opening for smoke pipe which could be

concrete or heavy steel as well. Well tile would actually make a great smoke

pipe because it's got a fairly thick wall. So here when it comes time to cut

this you're going to want to mark that out and use what's called a masonry saw

It's a kind of a cutoff saw. Here's what it looks like. This is my own saw here

I've been using it for many years. It's got a 14 inch diamond wheel here. It

lasts a long time. You can rent things like this too. You don't have to buy one

of these just to make your smokehouse firebox but you will want to look

for one that has a chance to hook up a garden hose. The hose hooks up here and

it distributes water through these lines and it squirts it on either side of the

blade just to keep the dust down. Without that there's huge billows of dust

developed by this saw. So essentially you fire it up and you use it to make cuts

here. Four cuts that you've pre-marked on the well tile. So one down here, here, here

and here. The cuts won't be able to go absolutely right into the corner. I mean

the top surface of the cut will be able to meet here but because the blade is

around there's still going to be a little bit of uncut material right in

the corner so that chunk isn't going to fall out. You will need to knock it out

maybe with a hammer and use a little chisel to clean up the corners but

that's essentially how you make this opening and on top of that is where your

door goes because you do have to be able to restrict the air leading into the

firebox. When it comes to making a hole for your pipe you're going to need some

kind of a hole saw. Some sort of a masonry hole saw to drill the size of

hole you need. Chances are you're not going to get a perfect fit with the

concrete or steel pipe you're using so when you set the well tile in place

where it's going to be ultimately and you stick the smoke pipe in there and

you get that all kind of aligned up one of the last things you'll want to do is

to plug up any gaps around the pipe using some mortar. Now nothing is going

to be burning very hot in here as I've said in earlier on in the course it's

just a smoldering fire so it doesn't have to be refractory masonry or

anything like that because it's just an old cold smoldering fire but you do want

it to be fairly well sealed here so that's you know you don't want any extra

air to get in. That's the main reason for wanting to seal this up so that you

have as close to full control as possible over the flow of air into the firebox