Spit roast

[felixx]

OK So I plan to teach my lad to shoot a few rabbits and prep em for eating
Im after a simple design for a spit roast to cook em over a fire

I was thinking of using a square rod so it had 4 'positions' (rotate it 90 deg every 5 min or so while the bunny roasts)

Any of you made something like this?

[dales133]

Made stacks of them mate.
You can actualy get pretty good ones with all the prongs and clamps now days for next to nothing either aa batter powered or electric.
You couldnt make one for what you can buy one of these for.
Back in the day we used to run them off old washing machine motors and an ej holden front pully.
Was pretty billy t jamesish but it would turn a whole goat easy

[KCStudly]

My mother lives in an antique house with a big stone hearth and a clock jack spit. They had an old spit rod with a wooden pulley on it, but wanted authentic looking prongs to keep the roast from just spinning on the rod. I was able to fabricated a set of prongs from 1/4 inch square bar, interlocking the bent tang ends to form a square drive and tapping with a thumb screw, sharpening the business end of the prongs into spikes, and then distressing them a bit to make them look the part of antiques.

The square spit is key to keeping the prongs from spinning on the spit, thus keeping the roast spinning with the spit. The goal is to get the roast centered on the spit so that it is balanced and tends to rotate evenly. It is rarely ever perfect and I doubt that just the squareness of the spit would be enough to keep the weight of the typical imbalance from turning in a rest.

Most of mom's spits actually have the corners knocked off (round sections) where they land on the rests so that they turn easier. The one on her gas grill even has an adjustable bob weight that can be used to offset any out of balance in the roast.

For small game I would think that you could get away with a couple of stakes with inverted shepherd's hooks to rest your spit on; just drive them into the ground to the desired level and lay the spit across. I think you would be better off, either keeping the roast moving, or devising a catch, clamp or indexing mechanism that makes it easy to turn and hold the spit in increments. Could be as simple as a bell crank on the end of the spit and a few pins on a disc attached to one of the stakes; pull the crank out of index with the pins, turn an increment, and push the crank back in between pins.

[felixx]

welcome back Slow!

[KCStudly]

Yeah, welcome back, Slow.

I'm glad this thread came up again. I almost forgot that I had taken some pics of the spit forks that I made.

The spit is probably 1/2 to 5/8 inch square. The prongs of the fork are each bent 90 deg's, two ways, so that they form a square when joined together.


Thumbscrews lock them in place on the spit.


I made a wider set of forks, too, but they aren't ever used.

This is what I was referring to about turning the bearing area of a square spit round.


This is the bob weight from mom's gas grill rotisserie. The slot in the bail pinches between the handle and a wide washer on the threaded hilt of the spit. By rotating and/or sliding the weight in or out you can adjust the balance of the roast. Kind of overly complicated for a simple camp setup, but it gives you an idea of the importance of balancing the roast on the spit.

[felixx]

Thanks for that
I got a square rod which is far too long for what I want (almost 5')
Time for some experementation