Leaving only the faintest of Traces: Barrel stove kit installed

Every year I gobble up a few tanks of propane making syrup from the maples on my property. Because I have mostly red and swamp maple, whose sugar content is in the .5-1.5 percent range, I have to boil a lot of sap.

Side note: I've planted sugar maple saplings that I bought from the Arbor Day people, but that's 8-10 years out.

Given the massive amounts of wood, brush, and a stand of girdled trees that I've slowly been harvesting, I have "free" fuel. Boiling my own sap with my own wood as fuel using recycled parts gives me "free" maple syrup, manages brush on my property, is carbon-neutral, and is a great hobby.

I purchased the Vogelzang barrel stove kit from Northern Tool, and today took advantage of the 40 degree (F) weather and installed it. Total time about 2 hours, and I only cut myself on the sharp metal once. The kit has the cast iron feet, front door and an adapter/damper for a 6" pipe.
Tools you will need:
Drill with a small and a 5/16" bit
Jigsaw/Sawzall with a metal cutting blade (or 2)
Magic marker for marking your cuts
Beefy phillips-head screwdriver
Cleverness at filling in the blanks on the instructions

Total cost: free barrel (but look on Craigslist, $25-40 is the norm), $51 for kit incl. shipping, 2 bags of play sand and 2 lengths of 6" pipe, total $80.

Instructions were good, not even chinglish, but left many small details out. If you've built things and are handy this is not a problem. If you are looking for IKEA-like detail, seek help or look elsewhere.

Ear plugs are a must. One thing I found is that unless you punch all the holes first, they'll have a tendency to 'walk' while you're drilling, and nothing will line up. What I did was get the parts on with 2 or 3 screws, then used the holes in the Vogelzang castings to line up the drill - everything went together perfectly.

Once assembled, I put a few inches of sand in the bottom and lit it up. Worked like a charm, exactly as I had imagined it would. At one point the surface temperature was 800 degrees (F). It had a pretty funky paint smell for a bit. I let it burn down, I'll scrape the charred paint off later, and maybe hit it with a can of stove paint. Next step will be to attach a shelf to hold the pan of sap (stainless steel steam-table tray). I can taste the syrup now.

Front attached: