Graybeard, those drum smokers do alright w/ wood. You've gotta build up a good fire first and let it burn down to a bed of coals.. You may have to add wood 2 or 3 times to get enough coals. Once you're there then you add wood chips for smoke, they should be soaked overnight first. Then you add your meat.
That being said, I really don't like that type of smoker myself, their only pros are being extremely cheap/easy to build.. while their cons are considerable: Very difficult temperature regulation, not much room for smoking in any kind of volume, they require a relatively huge amount of wood to use properly, and you simply cannot cold smoke w/ one. Not a great trade off, they make a poor smoker and a worse BBQ.
I'm also not a fan of water smokers, however. I'm trying to smoke meat, not prepare smoke flavored steamed meat.
The best cheap, small scale smoker I can think of is as easy to make as it gets. You need a clean 55 gal drum, a cheap single element electric burner, 12' of dryer vent tubing, a 12" x 18" piece of tin, a 10" x 10" piece of tin and some 1/4" rebar. A cheap oven thermometer is handy.
Just poke some holes in the barrel for the rebar, at appropriate heights to hang your meat from. Cut out the bottom of the drum. Make a hole for the dryer tubing somewhere around 2" from the bottom and attach the tubing to the drum. Bend that 12" x 18" piece of tin into a hood for the element, and attach the hood to the other end of the tubing. Set the drum up on bricks. You're done.
You can hot smoke w/ it just by putting that element right under the barrel, then set that 10" x 10" piece of tin on it, and put your wood chips on top. It will take some trial and error to find the setting on the element that will smoke the chips w/o igniting them. You can regulate air flow/Temperature w/ the lid. (wear an oven mitt if it's been on for a while
)
To cold smoke w/ it take that piece of dryer tubing and situate the hood somewhere lower than the drum, and put the element under the hood instead of in the drum. That's it.
As for a BBQ.... Grab a shovel and bring home some cinder blocks. You'll never need another one.