What with imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, and all that, let's just call it a very nice, and heavy duty I might add, facsimile of same.
The best pits are going to be thick and heavy. They take a lot of fire and time to come up to temp but once there they are easy to hold at a set temp for a long time. BBQ sits in the smokers 8-10-12 hours. My thin 1/8 plate unit has to be checked every 30 minutes or so. A big honker can be gently fed over hours without swings in cooking temp. They guy that used to live across the street from us had a small pit on a trailer that was made from 36" pipe with 1/2" wall. They used a fork lift to put the pit on the trailer. He had lots of awards. I think it's a right of passage before you get to make your dream BBQ pit designed from scratch... 
Both are excellent standards to strive for.
You'll see a bunch of that around here too.Yeah but another Texas redneck thing is we like to turn things that weren't smokers, into smokers... i.e. any old tank like from an air compressor, propane tank, even a 55 gallon drum.
You say that like there's something wrong with it....
Nope nothing wrong with that, since i'm a Texan.. Proud of BBQ and *****..
nice build
hot spots, cold spots?
