Homegrown Fire Pit

Homegrown Fire Pit

In this age of the Covid-19, with the recommendation of staying home and limiting entertainment options, you need to have a place in the backyard where you can relax and contemplate. How about your own little campfire at home?

Before we go any further, check with your city/county/regional district and confirm that you are able to have a controlled fire pit in your backyard. Wouldn't want you to go through all that trouble, only to find out you gotta mothball your prized fire pit.

Tools:

MIG welder
Plasma Cutter (not a 100% necessary, but nice to have)
Handheld grinder
Propane Torch
Clamps - C-Clamps, welding clamps, magnets, etc.
Safety Equipment - welding helmet, beanie, cotton jacket (welding top), gloves, jeans or equivalent), leather boots, safety glasses, earplugs, you get the point.

BTW, YOU BUILD YOUR OWN FIRE PIT AT YOUR OWN RISK, PERIOD.

Materials:

24" tractor/trailer rim
2 - 18" light truck rims
1 - sheet, small diameter mesh
A bunch of horseshoes or whatever metal for decoration (optional)
Sum scrap straight bar steel and a piece of light plate steel
Can of hi-temp flat black spray paint

So, get as much of your steel material at the cheapest place you can find, like a metal scrapyard. Not necessary to go fancy with new stuff because after a few evenings the fire pit looks same... burnt in.

Here's what you need to do to prepare the cauldron for a secure fire pit.

You are looking at the inside of the large 24" rim. Check out the two highlighted spots. These are vents in the rim. In the 'red tinted' highlighted center you see the lug holes and the center hole of the rim.

To plug the two vents, I took some heavy card paper and traced out the shapes. Then trace out the paper on some small pieces of some 10 - 12 gauge scrap plate steel. Cut the shapes and place them in the gaps. Use some magnets to hold them there and turn up the heat and weld them in.

BTW, make sure you grind/buff the surfaces so you get a good, solid weld. But you knew that, I digress.

In the center, I chose to leave the lug holes open. I'm looking for great air circulation for excellent combustion. When you get to the part of building a pedestal, the 18" truck rim should cover the open holes. That's why you can leave them open. Make sure on that matter.

The big open center need to have a a bar and a heavy gauge screen, so you can filter the ashes/small embers into the 18" rim below. Also provides additional combustion air. So get some bar metal and mesh and weld it in.

Now we move on to the pedestal, the 18" truck rim, situated under the larger 24" rim.

To prep the pedestal 18" small rim, you need to do a couple of things.

Cut some 4.5 inch holes in the center of the rim. Again, I used my plasma to cut them. I cut four holes. Cut the vent ones big enough so you can stick your shop-vac nozzle in and vacuum out the ashes periodically.

Secondly, cut a circle out of light sheet metal and weld it in the bottom of the pedestal. This way, you'll catch all the ashes and small live embers in the bottom of the pedestal. Thus, no fire hazard and no mess.

Now put the larger rim on top of the smaller rim, and weld them together.

I found some heavy truck tire chains at the scrapyard. I cut a loop in half and welded them on the top of the fire pit. At this point, the fire pit is starting to a weigh a bit. The handles come in handy.

At this point, you could just throw the fire pit down on the ground, fire it up and enjoy, but...

...we're not finished yet! I bought some classy, large horseshoes (8 of them) and welded them on the cauldron. Why eight horseshoes? My beloved Calgary Stampeders have won 8 Grey Cups in their 75 years. Maybe when we've got CFL games going again, I'll drag it down to the stadium and tailgate with it.

You do not need to paint it, for sure. I just brushed on some industrial metal paint. Unless it's 'hi-temp' paint, it'll burn off after a few burns. The red horseshoes have held up well.

Most fire departments and by-law officers require you provide a spark arrestor/screen to make your fire pit safe in the neighbourhood.

This is where that mesh screen material and that second truck rim comes in. I cut a piece of rim off the smaller and larger rims. I used them, along with the mesh and some bar metal, to build a bit of a cone. When completed, the spark arrestor sits on top of the fire pit.

To add some more western class, I made a removable horseshoe kaleidoscope lid. It sits on top of the arrestor. Removable of course, to allow you to stoke up the fire. The evening is young.

In closing, I didn't keep up with stages of the build photos when I was working through the project. But I hope you get the gist of the homemade fire pit.