Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I've owned this stove for about 3 years and love it. It's held up well (200 plus burns) keeping me warm on many a cold night and cooked many meals in my 10x10ft portable camping/hunting shelter. With a couple mods. this stove is almost perfect. I would rate it a 5 star, but the paint is garbage, so you'll be required to burn it off and repaint with hi-temp bbq paint. $7-8 at any hardware store. Wire brush/sand off the burnt paint and touch up if you see any rust and this stove will last a long time. Other than a couple dents mine looks nearly new. I've seen several that weren't repainted and they were a rusted out mess in a short time. You have to keep this stove dry. I store mine in a waterproof military surplus bag indoors. I made several modifications that improved the burn and functionality of the stove. The stock stove pipe/cap isn't large enough to burn/draw efficiently in my initial 8-10 burns, so that was the first to go. I picked up a 2.5x3 inch muffler adapter ($2.50) at the auto parts store and 2, 5 ft. sections of 3 inch galvanized heat duct ($10) at Lowes. Used a couple hose clamps and some wood stove cement to tie the adapter together. I made a top cap/spark arrestor out of 1/4 inch hardware cloth and a circle I cut out of a pie plate. Sprayed it with a couple coats of hi-temp paint. I give up some portability, but the improvement is well worth it. The next mod was adding a wire grate. I had an old bbq grate laying around, so cut it to fit. Adding the grate makes the wood burn nicely with excellent air flow and keeps the belly of the stove from burning out. You can add sand for protection too, but 1,000's of hours of use it's holding up well. With the larger stove pipe and grate I have zero smoke problems and it burns like a dream. I replaced the cheap springs holding the circle vents, so I have better control. I never open the back one, so that could be permanently sealed. On my stove the wire racks/tubes wouldn't allow my Coleman oven or my grill to sit flat, so I added 1/4 inch bolts on either end of the heater tubes to raise up the racks. Couple taps with a hammer fixed the loose fitting door latch. I know I'll burn my fingers if I'm not careful opening it, so I have a piece of kindling handy or a leather glove. I suppose that's my next mod. adding a knob. There's some build quality issues, but nothing that can't be easily fixed. I've been very happy with this stove and for the price nothing comes close. It's become my favorite piece of outdoor gear two thumbs up. Update: 3/7/13 I finally got tired of burning my fingers on the door latch even though I always kept a glove or piece of wood handy....yeah right....Cut a 2" long x 3/4" square off a piece of pine and drilled a 1/4 inch hole in the center. Glued it on with some J/B weld. Holding up well to 50 hours of burn time. Next the vent. Update: 10/23/13 Installed a wood knob on the front vent and after 100 plus hours of burn time the J/B weld is holding up well and I no longer burn my fingers. I tried using J/B weld on the stovepipe and it burned off in the high heat, so that area gets too hot. High temp. stove mortar cement works well for gluing or sealing and can be found at the chain store hardware outlets.