[Spit-project] raised fire pits and designs

[Charles Netterville]

First of all, I had a chance to visit Meisterin Katarina's web site and I was inspired. This is a wonderful design that's simple, large and most importantly, ( adjustable ) There has been mention made of a raised fire pit that dirt could be put in and the coals on top of that. Meisterin Katarina also mentioned a picture of her spit in Cindy Renfrow's book Take a thousand eggs or more.  I took out my copy, started thumbing through it and although I couldn't find the picture of hers, ( I stopped looking when I came across another one that took my attention ) I came across a design that may be what Meisterin Katarina is speaking of. If so, it's a wonderfully simple design and since the cooks would be putting a layer of dirt down I'm thinking it could be made of 1/8" or 3/16" plate steel, perhaps 2" pipe or angle iron for the legs and uprights that can be covered to hide mundanity, and incorporate Meisterin Katarina's existing spit design shown at 
  http://meisterin.katarina.home.comcast.net/pennsic30.html .
  I have the second edition and the drawing is on page 85. They show it with a cauldron threaded through the spit but it's the same basic premise. What would be some measurements that we could start with and what input does everyone think we need to incorporate into this design? We need to think about how large an animal will be that we'll be threading onto it, weight allowances for the metal so we know how beefy ( pun intended ) to make it, user friendly, compact car or back of a pick up friendly, what to do on sites where we can't drive the uprights into the ground etc. I think if we can put our heads together we can have a working prototype pretty quickly...
   In service, Elrique ( still just the humble welder )
   
   

       
---------------------------------
Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell?
 Check outnew cars at Yahoo! Autos.