couple of thoughts here, I didn't read the whole post to see if any of this was mentioned, but just my personal preferences. I built my smokers ( and several for other people out of 1x6" cedar fence boards. I built my first one and learned from my mistakes. first you build the box however big you want it. I build mine about 4 feet high and 2.5 feet square. this allows wheeled coasters to be used for us suburbanites. then I use a single burner element to fire it up with a damper on the top. I put a thermometer in from the side about 3/4 the way up . I put the element in a pan to catch drips above the element I put a bent piece of steel to deflect the grease away from the burner and into the pan. next I fire up the smoker and allow it to dry out for 10-12 hours several times with jerky or something inside it. during this time the boards will dry out and shrink up to a 1/4 inch. once the boards have shrunk, I cut 1" bats and brad nail them over the spaces. the last smoker I built was so tight the only smoker you saw was when you opened the damper. they work great they look good in cedar and can be rolled into the garage. plus you can build to fit easily available racks. HINT!! go to the county dump they ussually have a appliance recycling program and many of the stoves that are thrown away have stainless steel racks which cost 20-40 dollars at lowes or home depot for FREE. Also my dad always said not to use glue.