The Start Of A Smoker

I just got home today from buying a 55 gallon drum. It's time to build my first UDS and I'm going to walk you through everything I do. I was lucky enough to find a food grade drum that did not have the liner in it. Unfortunately it had a lot of rust on the inside that needed to be cleaned out first. After a lot of sand paper and several hand cramps I got most of it out. My hands were angry with me so I decided to take a break. I had a lot of tumble weeds that I needed to do something about so I decided to throw them in the drum and I fired it up. I had a bunch of smaller mesquite branches that I wasn't planning on using to smoke with so I burnt those too. As you can see the paint came off from the bottom. I was actually hoping for this because I don't plan on leaving it black.

Tomorrow I will clean out all the ash and pick up where I left off sanding down the inside. If I have time and my hands don't kill me then I will also sand down the outside to get it ready for the paint I intend to use on it. Another thing I need to fix is a small dent on the side. That might take a bit of muscle, but I'm sure I can work it out. I'll post my progress with more pictures of what things look like at each stage.