Best high temp material

I have been searching, and may have missed, but I'm looking to answer a question for a new brew sculpture i'm building to fit in a custom space in my new home. It will look similar but smaller than the one at the link below.

http://hbd.org/discus/messages/366/33621.html

A friend of mine is going to help me get 2" steel tubing and do the welding and cutting. Gonna plumb it into the NG line of the house cause it will be right near the furnace (same room, properly vented of course). My question is, what is a good material to support the boil kettle and HLT? I'm gonna do 5 gallon batches max (space issue mostly), so I'm building it to fit 14" 8 gallon kettles. I'm afraid of just setting them on the steel and heating directly, and would rather use something like a ceramic grill grate if possible. But I'm striking out on finding something that would work. Sizing would be less than 24" square, and I figure the weight for each would be about 75 lbs. Mostly, I just don't want to transfer heat into the frame, so I need to isolate it to the grill or grate that it will be sitting on as best possible.

Thoughts? How best to do this?

If all you're trying to do is isolate the brew kettle from the steel frame, you can place an insulating strip between the kettle and the steel. McMaster Carr sells lots of neat items for halfway decent prices. A brief search turned up item #4057K2 which is an extra high temperature strip with an adhesive back. You could stick it right between the steel frame and the areas where the kettle will sit and it will prevent a lot of conduction. The surrounding area will probably get pretty hot (depending on the BTUs of the NG burners you plan to use), so putting a heat shield around the burner section of the stand might also be a good idea.

Good luck with the build!

Joe

What's wrong with using steel supports? That's what most people do including yours truely. My frame doesn't get hot- excluding the area around the burners of course. It's easy, cheap, and works well.