Weldless Heat Shield for Brew Stand - How To

[bendiy]

Now that you have finished your brew stand, before you fire those burners up, wouldn't it be nice to protect the stand from the high heat?

Your stand is probably made out of galvanized steel, stainless, or painted carbon steel. If it's galvanized steel, getting it hot is going to burn off the zinc coating releasing poisonous gases and allowing it to rust. If it's painted, the paint will burn off. If it's stainless, its going to get dirty and you just wasted all those hours polishing that stand.

I present to you, the Weldless Heat Shield for Brew Stand:

This idea came to me from diatonic's stand, but he welded together stainless angle. I don't have access to a welder and I didn't want to pay for stainless, so I came up with an alternative.

I found the following at a salvage yard for $10:

It's standard perforated angle iron most of the weldless stands are made of. There are also two pieces of aluminum. I'm not sure what they came off of, but the profile looks like this.

You could use standard aluminum angle, but I got these two pieces for $2 total.

I had to route out the profile:

Now the perforated angle iron fits perfectly:

Next, I measured the opening in my stand and took off 0.5 inches to leave 0.25 inches on each side for the shield to fit into the stand. It's a little tight, but it works fine. I'd leave 3/8 to 1/2 next time:

Only cut half way through. The cuts are then cleaned up with a grinder:

Notch out tabs on one end of each piece:

Then clamp the tabs and bend them over with a hammer:

Like this:

 

[bendiy]

Then bend the sides over:

Once you make a square, the tab overlaps to allow you to close the frame:

Now your frame looks like this:

The frame should set in your stand like so:

The next step is to measure and miter the aluminum at 45 degrees to build a frame. Measure carefully. You can always take a little more off if it doesn't fit right:

Here's how the miter should look:

The next step is to prep the corner braces. I picked these up at the depot, 8 for about $7:

To get a tight fit in the corner, you have to grind out the corner a little:

Now assemble all of the pieces like so and hold in place with a tie down strap:

Then tape the aluminum miters so they stay tight:

 

[bendiy]

Tape the sides also so the frames do not wiggle while drilling:

Label all of the corners. After drilling, you will have to take it apart to clean it up:

Drill holes through the corner brace holes. I only needed two holes in each corner, but you could go nuts and do all 8 in each corner:

The perforated angle iron leaves bad burrs when drilled and the aluminum is rough:

So after drilling, take it all apart and use a larger drill bit to clean up the burrs:

Now you are ready for the pop rivets. Hammer them in:

Put all of them in place first so it stays aligned before using the rivet gun to pop them:

When done, it should look like this from the bottom:

Here's the finished frame:

I wanted to burn off the zinc and paint on the frame, so I did a heat test. I placed the shield directly over the burner flame for a good 5-10 minutes:

 

[bendiy]

Here's the results:

The paint on the aluminum is pretty strong. It didn't burn off at all. I think it's an enamel finish. The aluminum acted like a heat sink, so I could only get the zinc to burn off of the galvanized parts that were exposed on both sides. I don't think I need to worry about the zinc burning off. If you use standard aluminum angle, it should cover the perforated angle iron completely and protect the zinc from burning off. I might add some extra aluminum around my exposed rim since the pieces I have don't cover the perforated angle iron completely.

Here's what the shields look like installed:

This is with a piece of duct work I'm using as a wind screen:

What I like about having a free floating frame as a shield is that it leave an air gap between the frame and your stand. This prevents the zinc or paint from burning.

My shield actually sets on the 8 rivets, so it's about 0.25 off of the stand:

 

[NCGrayson]

That seems like a lot of work

 

[friday]

That seems like a lot of work

So is brewing beer.


Pretty nice, I rednecked it and used a aluminum storm drain but if I ever get some time I'd like to build a fancy heat shield.

 

[DrewBrewTheGreat]

That seems like a lot of work

So is the "do-it-yourself" forum... Putting work into the project is kind of the point.

Nice job. I like the look and great step by step.