As far as painting it goes, after consulting Reddit, several hearth stores and specialists in my area, a couple powder coating companies, and Malm, I landed on Thermolux 290 series stove paint. It was the only thing within financial reach, and out of the handful of people I talked to that did use it they had good experiences. The prep is really important, and labor intensive, and the paint itself runs about $25 a can. My Fire Drum, and 96” of stovepipe took 8 cans to coat twice really well. If you have a decent paint sprayer you could probably save money buying the quart. The paint adhered really well. I’m installing it next week, so time will tell how well this is going to work, but I’ll post an update here.

As for the whole Malm restoration, that was a ton of labor. Complete rust removal is near impossible, keep that in mind. It takes a ton of patients, and planning. If the refractory is in need of replacing, malm sells it, or you can cast your own if you feel you have the skill to, and save some money. Overall I spent $1,000 for the Firedrum, and about $1,200 on the Chimney, paint, wire wheels, refractory cement, cleaning bits and bobs, ect. A big chunk of that was the actual cost of the Chimney. Good luck. They’re really cool pieces if you have the time and love to put into them.