Flue pipe damper on stove with baffle?

[AngelofDarkness]

I am installing a small wood stove in my workshop to heat my shop and parts of my house adjacent to it. It's a decent sized rolled steel stove made by US Stove in the 70's. It has a glass door which appears to have an air wash, there is an air intake just below the door that feeds air into the lower front of the firebox. There also seems to be an air intake box at the rear of the stove through some round holes covered with heavy screen, the whole works covered by a sheet metal shield. There are NO air adjustments on this stove of any sort, both the front and rear air openings seemed to be fixed. Theres also a very crude baffle that goes directly below the 6" flue outlet, it consists of nothing more than a square piece of heavy steel about 5" square that is held about 3 inches directly below the flue outlet by heavy metal straps. Its not much of a baffle but provides just a slight restriction to flue gases. Now, this stove had previously been installed with a flue damper control and I am wondering if it's supposed to have one. I may install it anyway and just leave it open, or close it just slightly once a good fire is going. I want nice hot, clean burning fires and little smoke from my chimney and I don't want to screw things up with the damper.

 

[woojr]

I have 4 stoves in 4 different locations. The draft is excellent in 3 of the 4 and okay in the other. In my mind I want a damper. It gives a great deal of flexibility in how it burns and how much heat stays in the space. Do you have a good draft? Metal chimney? How high? Trees around? Other roof peaks or buildings?
It's cheap to have in when you start.
Good luck, John