retro cookware | Hepcats Haven

1950’s Big Boy Barbecue Restoration

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Hepcats Haven

Mel and I picked up this Big Boy BBQ back in March of 2014. I knew it was time to drag it out of mothballs and get it ready for the grilling season.

I wanted a smaller BBQ than our GE Partio Cart for when I feel like just grilling something quickly.

The first step was to disassemble the BBQ.

This BBQ appeared to have been painted with a paint brush. Unfortunately, who ever painted did not do a very good job.

As you can see this grill had lots of surface rust and peeling paint.

No time like the moment! I jumped right in and started sanding. I noticed a lot of surface rust under the old paint.

On areas where the paint was difficult to get to I used a scraper.

After hours and hours of sanding and scraping it was ready to be painted.

I am proud to present our newly restored 1950’s Big Boy Barbeque!

I tried to add accents of red to offset all the silver paint.

The rims were originally silver but I think the red makes them pop!

This is where the coals go. This tray was incredibly rusted but after lots of sanding it looks like new.

To adjust the heat of this grill you raise and lower the coals by moving this red handle up the graduated adjuster.

With the help of my step-father Dave, we were able to cut out new side tables and apply new Formica to them so they are like new.

I had to order a new rotisserie motor for the grill. The one that came with it is toast. I was fortunate that I found an original NOS Big Boy BBQ rotisserie motor on eBay!

Now that it is all done, I can rest my arthritic hands. I can see the benefits of a sand blaster!

I am very pleased with it’s restoration.

Now I have a reason to break out all of our vintage BBQ utensils!

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Kitschy Items for the Kitchen and BBQ

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Hepcats Haven

You are being watched by these little helpers in the kitchen. (The names of the spices on this souvenir set are written in Finnish)

Call me crazy, but I love these little souvenir spice sets. Each one is unique because it was hand painted, usually in Japan. There were soo many makers of these such as Woodpecker Woodworks, Napco, Price Imports, Fitz and Floyd, Westwood Products, Ucagco, Norcrest Standard Specialty, MG and others. Many of these were purchased while folks were on vacation in the states and all over the world. Here are some we recently picked up.

I plan to use this set with the Royal Chef BBQ we recently restored. I going to add a spice rack on the right side to hold these little guys. That way, I can season the food as I cook.

Besides spice racks, these companies made all kinds of kitschy items for cooking including things for barbecuing! Below are a few items we purchased off of Etsy.

As you can see, these were made by MG of Japan and I love this set. There are 3 different characters to help you mark your steak; a bull for rare, a chef for medium and a cowboy for well done. I also dig the holder, it’s a tiny corral!

Looks like I need to replace one of the toothpicks on one of the bulls. It just makes you think that they made eating such an experience with little things like this to spice up a dinner.

This is what I would have on my steak, hate to eat a steak that is still bleeding. These little guys are so cool.

Here we have a set of extended salt and pepper shakers for using on the BBQ. This saves your knuckle hair from getting burned off when you try to season your meat. I knew we needed a set of these to add some style to the BBQ.

Since I plan to also restore the other BBQ made by Huntington, I needed BBQ utensils and extended salt and pepper shakers for that unit as well. Now that I have this, I need to purchase a set of spices to place in the tray on this BBQ.

There are soo many different kinds of souvenir shakers like these out there. Here are a few other ones that I thought were cool:

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This is a cool set made by Napco.

The colors on this set are great. These little guys even have earrings!

These shakers come in all sizes. Some shakers are large or small or squatty like this set.

Here are a couple of black cat shakers. The cool thing about this set is that they click together with magnets!

This set is known as the “I love Lucy” set. A set just like this one sold on ETSY for over $100!

These two look a little formal. He appears to have on a tuxedo and she has her mothers pearls on.

These little pieces really help show your personality when in the kitchen. Do yourself a favor and pick up a set that catches your eye and enjoy them.