BeerBorg

just got one to have hooked up to a natural gas line on the patio. while it looks like an impressively put together cooker I have an issue. none of the threads either for the natural gas orifice or the air damper slide stopping screw seem to be cut for crap. I can thread either by hand about barely one turn before they stick and wont turn anymore by hand.

would it be safe to use a wrench and screwdriver to tighten them further? I don't want to strip the threads.

the video on the blichmann site shows the guy hand tightening without a problem until the spring is compressed a couple turns. I cant get it on that tight at all.

You might have got a defective unit. Mine was fine.

Call them and ask.

If my memory serves me right, NG and propane orifices are different. You may have one for propane.

got it to finally go on. they slopped paint in the thread holes. I used a wrench and forced the port to turn one more turn and it works now. kind of disappointed that they never answer email inquiries from customers. (3 with various questions and zero replies in 2 weeks). after weeding through their website I found they even basically say: don't bother us if you have a problem. bother whoever you bought it from. hopefully it works as well as its reputation because in all honesty their company has not scored any points with me. they don't even give you a phone number on their site.

A quick internet search shows that Blichmann hasn't had good direct to customer service for some years. Not staffing a call center to deal with customers is a big no-no.

Using Google I found a number - 765-423-1498.

That is somewhat typical of a company that does not sell direct to consumers. They expect their dealers to field the question and if they can not answer they will talk to Blinchman and get an answer. This is especially the case with emails where you can simply ignore it. The trick is to call them directly as "in person" people are much less likely to be rude.

know how I finally got an email answer from them? I told them this is the problem I am having with your product. I bought it despite your failure to answer any of my emailed questions, going entirely on your product's reputation. if I don't get help from you on this problem i'll just assume you made a defective product and return it, and buy a bayou burner. miracle of miracles I got a reply , with an answer, with contact info... and an apology because they claim they had no record of any previous attempts to get help from them on their system and they take customer communication very seriously and..... etc. all moot since I got the parts to finally thread sufficiently.

further miracle: my other email account that I wrote them 2 weeks ago and never got a reply to a question, got a reply within the hour of receiving this one. lol. guess someone there wasn't doing their job and decided maybe blowing off the clients isn't a good idea???