New Table Rides!

JTGray

OK, so here is the story of my Egg experience. Hopefully you will have some sympathy for this small tragedy, even though it has a happy ending.

I was given a medium egg (by my mother in law, no less)about 7 years ago, and have been an extremely devoted fan and evangelist. I have several friends that have also been converted as a result of my experience. With that extended use, I began to regret that I had a medium Nest, which as most of you know is one of the flimsier setups for an egg. I have longed for a table for many years.

While conceeding to buy my wife a new house, I negotiated with the bargain the purchase of a second egg. (Take note, single men.) She loved the vegetables I cooked, and we had both recognized that the medium was not big enough for big meals and parties. I also saw this as a chance to get the table I wanted.

I saw a sale at the bbq store here in Memphis and so to guard against the inevitable changing of her mind I went out and bought the large egg. The guys at the store agreed to hold onto the egg until I had moved into the new house and built a new table. The egg seemed such a fragile thing that I did not want to risk any extra movement.

Making the table took longer than I thought. The guys at the store called me every once in a while to confirm that I still remembered they were holding the egg for me. They were not used to someone just paying that much money and then never actually taking the product home. But anyway, I finally finished the table, and resisted the temptation of having the new egg delivered until it was completely done. I wanted to be absolutely sure that the egg would not get broken.

On the day of the delivery, the table looked beautiful (pictures below). I could not wait for the guys to come with the large egg, and so I decided to lift the medium egg up into the table myself. I'd like to make a comment here that anyone considering moving an egg by themselves should realize that they MUST grab BOTH halves of the egg while lifting it. If you lift it from the hinge and frame, then the lower half of the egg can slip out of the metal brace and fall. Well, you can imagine my sadness as I looked down at my wonderful egg, smashed to bits on the ground in front of what was to be its shrine.

Well, the eventual happy ending is that I just spent the money to buy ANOTHER new egg. I still feel a little silly, as this completely erased all the money I had saved making the table myself. But I certainly could not just live with a large table with a big hole in it. Now I have several spare parts for my medium egg, and both eggs are brand new and look beautiful. So finally, with that introduction, here is the new table. Built off of a modified Whiz Bang plan, I made it out of Cypress, with an effort keep both eggs at the same height. I used fire bricks under the egg, spaced a little to allow breathing. I also can just fit a plastic bin underneath for storage of charcoal.



Here are pictures of the way I placed the bottom of the medium egg up a little, and the large egg down a little, to make the tops the same height.





Today I am cooking baby back ribs, chicken wings, and brats for the Super Bowl (and my son's birthday). Hopefully no trees will fall on it.

JTGray

fire egger

sorry about your broken egg, what a bummer.
that looks like a pretty good setup

golffer

Love the table and both eggs. Quite a happy ending.

gsgentry

Awesome looking table!!! Hopefully I will get started on mine soon!!

pplkook

Howdy

So can you tell me more about how the egg sits? I think I really like the idea of having a opening below the vent opening for easy cleaning.

What is the egg sitting on - assume firebrick?

Do you have dimensions? How much lumber did you use?

Thanks in advance. I am thinking about almost the same thing with a Large/Small and having drawers in the middle....

-Jack

JTGray

The eggs are sitting on fire bricks. After reading about other burned wood stories, I thought it would be a good idea. They were not easy to find (I had to go to a masonry supply yard), but they were ridiculously cheap ($17 for 12 of them, of which I only used 6). They are 9 in. by 4.5 in. by about 1 in.

I can't remember how much total lumber I bought. It was something like 24 pieces of 4x1 finished lumber 8 ft. long each. To support the large egg, I glued a 4x1 double thick to make it 4x2, and mounted two of them flat and even with the bottom of the cross pieces. This made an 8" platform to support three fire bricks on to make the large egg sit below the surface of the bottom shelf. For the medium egg, I put 3 cross pieces at the same level as the other cross pieces on the bottom shelf (in the vertical orientation) and put the fire bricks on top of them. This positioned the bottom of the medium egg a little above the level of the bottom shelf, and made the tops of the eggs even.

I tried to plan everything really carefully, but what I ended up with did not perfectly match my plans. I wanted the bottom shelf to be 17 in. off the ground, and it ended up only 15 in. I was still able to find a bucket to fit under the table, though.

I have a PowerPoint file with my plans in it, which I could send you with the caution that something in them is not quite right by 2 inches. It may be the thickness of the wood. With that caveat, though, they are really useful. Each piece of wood is a separate graphical object, and by clicking on the object you can see the dimensions. The plans use the scale of 1 in. equals 10 in. If an object is 8.67 in. in the drawing, then the wood is 86.7 inches, or about 86 3/4 inches.

Send me an email to (I'll disguise the address to avoid spam but hopefully you can figure it out):
johnandbusyATcomcastdotnet. If you have powerpoint, you will be able to more clearly see how I supported the eggs, with the space under the lower vent open for discarding ashes.