Notice: The following decribes how I initially built the Charcoal Basket. Further down in this post I describe how I made a modification to this design to lower the heat further down in the drum away from my lower cooking grill. The initial design worked, and worked well, I just wanted to change it. I am leaving the original design so that you can choose for yourself which you think would work best for you.
Original design: I decided to use the donor Kettle for as many parts of the UDS as I could, so I decided to build a Charcoal Basket out of the lower half of the Kettle. I can always replace it with a more common expanded metal basket design if I decide that would work better in the future. The Kettle had been previously assembled, so this part was removed from the bottom of the metal bowl. Three screws hold it in place.
This is the Kettle's ash can and airflow control. I stripped the silver airfow ring out of it, as well as the rod, and I removed the handle.
The ash pan used to slide on and off the ring that I removed in the first picture. I will be bolting it to the lower bowl, so the tabs need to be bent out flat and are easily bent with a pliers.
I drilled holes around the edge to bolt it to the lower bowl. Here I illustrate the use of a center punch for the holes that you will drill into the sheet metal. With a small sized drill, the dimple will locate the hole right where you want it. Drill the hole out to the required size after drilling the small pilot hole. Use the center punch and pilot hole technique on ALL of the holes that you drill on your UDS.
The ash receiver is bolted to the lower Kettle bowl.
The small picnic pan is bolted to the bottom of the whole thing to catch ash and drippings.
I drilled some additional airflow holes around the lower bowl, the ash will drop into the lower pan.
I determined that the charcoal basket could be only 18 inches in diameter and still fit in and out of the drum past the grill supports, so, I used my hand grinder and a cut-off wheel to cut the lower Kettle bowl down to size. The bowl was pretty flat after that trimming, so I got some small expanded metal at Home Depot and constructed sides for the bowl. I had some supplies left over from long ago when I built rabbit cages for my wife. So I put the little clips to use with the special pliers to hold the expanded metal together at the over-laps. You can used bolts and washers instead.
The finished charcoal basket. I later found a metal bail for a handle that fit perfectly to lift it in and out of the UDS. I didn't get a picture of the bail on the basket.
NEW Modification: As I said, I might decide to modify the basket after using the UDS. Well I found that the current design placed the charcoal/heat a little bit too close to the lower rack to be able to set the temperature airflow and forget it. The lower rack cooked much sooner than the top grill. So, I thought about it awhile and decided to eliminate the Kettle's ash can and replace it with 4 bolts and nuts. Here are the supplies I bought at Lowes, 4 Carriage Bolts, 12 washers, and 12 nuts. These bolts pictured are 6 inches long. I could have selected 3 or 4 inch bolts and saved myself a couple of bucks. I should have measured before going to Lowes, but once I'm there, I hate to buy inexpensive parts that might not be a good fit, so that I have to return them. I'd rather cut too long than buy too short.
Here is the original measurement (approximately 7 inches) from the charcoal grill to the bottom of the UDS. There is room for some improvement to lower the charcoal grill to get it further below the lower cooking grate.
Here I have the bolts mounted to the lower ash pan. I had to cut some 1/2 inch spacers from some steel tube to raise the washer above the square shoulder of the carriage bolts.
A quick and easy way to line up the spacer nut and washer. I found a piece of wood strip 1/2 inch thick an adjusted the nut and washer to it for all 4 bolts.
This gave me almost 1 inch clearance for airflow between the edge of the ash pan and the bottom of the charcoal pan.
So, using the bolts, I was able to save 3 inches in the height of the original charcoal basket design. The grill is at the 4 inch mark on the tape measure, although it looks like it's on the 5 inch mark in the picture.
Here are a couple pictures of the modified UDS charcoal basket.
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