Grill cart

 

"Not strictly about airplanes, but y'all eat... don't you?!" "In that case you might enjoy this post"

 

Christmas 2022 Gina and I gifted ourselves a 1500ºF grill sold by Schwank Grills. Definitely not cheap, but highly recommended by a couple of trusted YouTubers.

This is an outdoor use only grill, and apparently its "infrared technology" is the best way to give steaks a good sear of the kind you'd find at a great steakhouse. 

 

Heat is controlled by raising or lowering the tray using the handle on the right side. Because the infrared elements are on top, you start with the tray as far up as you can, to get the meat to within 1" to 1.5" of the red hot elements. 

 

It takes 60 to 90 seconds to sear that side, then you repeat the process on the other side. After that, you lower the tray to level 3 (750ºF) until the meat internal temperature is as you like. The whole process takes 5 to 7 minutes. For thinner steaks all I do is sear both sides, and be ready to eat in 2 to 3 minutes.

 

When the grill showed up, I realized it was a thick gauge stainless beast, and I could barely pick it up off the floor without pulling a back muscle. This delighted and distressed me, because I knew quality would be built in, but portability would be an issue.

This grill is massive!

 

As much as I wanted to give it a try right away, the 1500ºF thing worried me because I did not have any fire proof surfaces other than the welding table (didn’t think about that until now), and I did not trust it to not burn down either the wooden back deck, or the garage table, so decided to wait until I could come up with a more fire-proof cart of sorts.

I decided to build one to fit the grill exactly, which meant I needed to replicate it in CAD first, then start building the cart virtually. 

 

It is gas operated, so I needed to find a good place for the bottle.

I also wanted the cart to be narrow enough to get it in and out of the house with ease.

Wasn't planning on leaving this beauty outside

 

I chose a 1”x1” square tube construction with the same caster wheels I had fitted to the plasma table because they were cheap and have been working extremely well.

Basic construction with gussets for extra strength

 

Most of the material was bought from Online Metals, and it showed up within a few days. They are easy to deal with, and fast to ship.

 

 

Most of the material needed (minus a few tubes)

 

The wheels came from Amazon, and the 1/2"-13 threaded inserts from McMaster-Carr. I also bought a few rubber caps to close up some of the square tubes later from Amazon. To facilitate welding square in 3D, I picked up this 3-Axis Square from Fireball Tools, definitely not cheap nor needed, but I've been wanting something like this for a long time. 

 

This is one heavy piece of machined cast iron

Here are the tubes on the inside of the square tool

Reference surfaces have been milled flat, and strong magnet inserted on bottom.

In this setup the tubes are on the outside of the square tool

I started out TIG welding the top tray on my table, then added the legs, and the bottom tray.

Adding the first leg to the top tray

The Fireball tool is very precise

Using the 3-Axis Square on the top tray crossbar

All legs mounted

Finally able to stand on its own

Checking out the height with the wheels on

 

Later, I added the gas bottle tray, the gussets, and the grill supports.

 

The gas bottle plate was cut on the CNC plasma table

 

 

 

Gusset production

I used a 1/2" thick bar of aluminum as a spacer for the gussets

Welding one of the grill supports

All four grill supports welded

Plenty of strength even without gussets

Using the spacer bar to tack-weld the first gusset

First gusset TIG welded

All gussets welded

Opposite view of the welded gussets

Luckily for me, my good neighbor Jeff volunteered to paint the whole thing for me, and since I suck at painting, I gladly relinquished control.

Since Jeff offered to paint, I let him choose the color.

Plenty of hangers for cooking utensils

The grill tray (as well as the lower sauce pan) slides out

Bought the grill cover when I thought I was going to leave it out

 

I think the cart turned out great, but more importantly... can this grill deliver?

Two 1.5 lbs (0.7kg) Ribeyes

You can see the "Infrared" heaters doing their thing

One side done, flipping these babies over.

Heck yeah!

Ohhhh, but it does... 😋🤤