Hey, all, I looked at several articles regarding steel warpage with
welding and cutting and some on hot-rolled versus cold-rolled steel
but I still have a problem I don't have an answer for: how can I
prevent (and correct if it does happen) warpage of the doors of a
smoker when the doors are cut and when the strap (to cover the gap) is
applied?

What I did is I took a piece of 24 inch steel pipe (1/4 inch wall, I'm
not sure if it's hot or cold rolled) and capped it with 1/4 inch plate
to make a smoker. I cut two doors from the side of the pipe for doors
using oxy/acetylene (I have a plasma torch but it's maximum
recommended material thickness is 3/8ths of an inch so it's kind of
slow for cutting this 1/4 inch material). I cut the four sides of the
door except for about 1/4 inch tags at each end of each cut so, when I
was done I had 8 tags of uncut material, two at each corner. I let
the tube cool overnight (in case that might matter) and then welded
hinges on the doors prior to separating the tags to free the doors.
When I did free the doors they moved a little, but nothing terribly
objectionable. I then applied 1 1/4 inch wide, 1/8th inch thick strap
to the doors to overhang the gap. I pre-bent the pieces to be used on
the curved areas of the door to try to prevent warpage. I tacked it
all into place with my wire welder (gas-flux) and then began to weld
it fully into place. I welded a little here, a little there, across
two doors and maybe took an hour to weld them up fully (I didn't time
it, but it took a long time). When I started to weld the strap fully
to the doors it was flush and almost perfectly contacting the body of
the smoker but by the time I had fully welded it into place it was
gapped, particularly at the bottom (farthest from the hinges).

I understand that steel tends to warp towards the weld but I don't
know what I could do to prevent it or fix it (I'm embarrassed to say
that I did, in fact, attempt to "adjust" the doors with a sledgehammer
which was just slightly worse than completely useless for this
problem). The doors are not useless, but they're not perfect,
either. I went to Cabela's today and looked at a Brinkmann smoker
there, specifically:

http://www.brinkmann.net/Shop/Detail...-3724-0&id=314

If that doesn't pull correctly just hit www.brinkmann.net and look for
Trailer Units under Outdoor Cooking then on 30" Deluxe Roadmaster.

They had used 1/4 inch material for the smoker tube, and they had
applied 1/8th inch thick strap (appeared to be 1inch wide instead of
the 1 1/4 inch I had used) and it was fully welded (and a big, thick
bead, not a piddly drizzle), however it looked like it was all done in
one pass instead of a bunch of little welds like I did and the doors
did not appear to be warped and they had good fitment of the strap to
the smoker body (much better than mine). I did not see any evidence
(and I was looking for it) of metal that might have been welded into
the inside-curve of the door to counteract warpage, nor did I see any
hammer-marks or discolorations (at least on the inside of the door,
the outside is painted) from torch-heating.

So, it appears that it can be done, I just don't know how. Any
suggestions or help is appreciated. Thank you for your time.

--HC