Some assembly required...

The box arrived looking like that old American Tourister suitcase from the 1980 ad which got thrown into the gorilla cage at the zoo. If you're under age 40 you don't have a clue what I'm talking about -- ask your parents. Or click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=749iU2Zv1kw&feature=related.

In some of the Amazon reviews, people complained about receiving damaged grills, missing hardware, etc. So I took pictures of the box first and then carefully unpacked it, photographing every piece. It appeared that it had been unpacked at some point, but then re-packed carefully without any damage.

Ok, you might want to take away my Man Card on this one, but I'm one of those guys who actually reads the directions to assemble something. So I laid out all the screws and nuts and pieces and tried to carefully follow all the instructions. I have to admit, there was nothing intuitive about it. And I've built lots of things from kits and I wouldn't have had furniture for the first two decades of my adult life if it hadn't been for Sauder furniture. I guess they're still in business... Anyway, so I'm trying my darndest to get this thing together, cursing ever louder with each nut that didn't show up in the instruction booklet. It says two people are needed to assemble. Again, take my Man Card if you need to on this one, but since my wife was at a PTA meeting, I had to engage the help of one or more of my kids to help me from time to time.

The booklet will tell you that you only need a pair of pliers and a Phillips screwdriver to complete the job. I guess you could do it with just that. But I found a good toolbox made it a lot easier. I used a 7/8 socket and 7/8 crescent wrench to tighten every bolt (there seem to be hundreds) which they caution IN REALLY BIG LETTERS to only finger tighten until the whole thing is assembled.

I guess the pliers are supposed to be used to tighten, but I really liked a socket wrench to tighten it correctly.

After two hours or so, I was pretty pleased with the outcome.

As far as construction, the Smokin Pro isn't covered in diamond plate, nor is it built with the same quality as you might find in a 55-gallon drum. But it's pretty tough and seems well designed. I was in Lowes and WalMart over the weekend and looked at some other smokers (Lowe's also carried the CharGriller brand) and was pretty underwhelmed with the quality of some other smokers at similar price points. I knew I wasn't spending $5k on a smoker and knew my measly $230 wouldn't go as far, but I'm satisfied that for the price I got a pretty good little smoker.

Now, on to prepping the grill for its first smoke....