Retro Post: Our Portable Firepot - Roadii Fire Grill Clone

This past weekend I undertook some upgrades to the portable firepit system we often use when camping.  When I started writing things up, I realized that I hadn't really ever documented the original construction and use.  So before I cover the upgrades, let's back up slightly and talk about how we do campfires.

When we camp, especially in certain environmentally-sensitive areas, we are often obligated to keep our fires elevated up off the ground.  At a bare minimum, this practice prevents creating long-lasting "fire scars" and the impact of every camper building their own fire ring, but it also has some more subtle reasoning.  In many areas such as our beloved nearby Anza Borrego Desert State Park, there's a delicate ecosystem of microbes and insects that lives just under the surface "crust".  The heat from a ground fire effectively kills this whole ecosystem for several feet in every direction and can require decades or more to recover.  The popular solution for most SoCal desert rats, decades before Pinterest got hold of the idea, is to use an old washing machine tub with a few pieces of angle-iron bolted on as legs. 

Photo courtesy of CampervanCulture.com

Back in 2014, I became aware of a UK product called the "Roadii Fire Grill", which uses an upcycled steel wheel as a firepot, suspended from a tripod.   These were used by Jed and the Campervan Culture crew on several of their epic CVC Trip videos.  CVC also sell a lightweight version of this system on their site.  It looks to be a great product, but given that I won't be able to use the "nest inside your spare tire" feature, plus the cost of transatlantic shipping, I decided to shamelessly clone the idea for myself.  I built mine from a galvanized feed pan, electrical conduit, a replacement Webber grill-grate, and a few other bits:

This construction has been fantastic for both grilling, and doing Dutch-Oven cooking, since I can raise and lower both the grill and the oven relative to the fire-pot.

On my way to a runner up entry at the American Adventurist Mountain Rendezvous Dutch-Oven Competition

Naturally, this system also works pretty well as a fire pit.

Construction of this "Roadii-clone" was fairly simple.  My version required minimal metal-working tools, and a clever person could probably build this without a welder and only hand-tools:

U-Bolts through the side of the pan and hooks bolted through the legs easily carry the weight of a cast-iron dutch oven, and help triangulate the legs of the tripod.

Adjuster cables slide inside the conduit.  Standard conduit unions mate the two parts of the tripod legs.

My "headpiece" is the only bit that's welded - three tabs fixed to a big hex-bolt give me easy 120° spacing.

Standard conduit hardware attaches the legs to the headpiece.  The upper hook can be raised and lowered to adjust the cables that hold the grill surface.  The lower hook is fixed, and lets me adjust pots or a dutch oven with the links in the chain.

After a couple of years of use, I cut a panel out of one side of the pan and added a sliding damper - this gives me a small amount of control over the airflow and heat.

Overall, this has been a great addition to our camp kit.  It's lightweight, quick to setup, and very portable.  With the break-down legs, the tripod goes into a bag about 30" long - roughly the size of a folding camp-chair.  The galvanized pan, grill grate, and all of my dutch-oven tools (lid lifter, small shovel for coals, etc.) all fit into an inexpensive 16" Dutch-Oven bag.