Well, my secondary burn modification to my wood stove is a success. After the fire was started and burning for about 10 minutes, there is a lack of smoke coming out the chimney. Its just amazing.
In the firebox I can see the flames are now a dark red mostly and dancing. The additional openings for the secondary burn air did not effect the closing of the factory damper and in fact you can really see how much better the fire burns at the top of the stove when it is dampered.
In all it took about 4 hours to fabricate it from start to finish. The cost was.....nothing really but some electricity and some welding supplies which were minimal.