I don't know where to get one with a black finish, but I know two sources for barrel hoods with copper finish. One is Independent Hoods, their "Bonanza" hood in the copper (it also comes in stainless). Independent makes very good quality hoods. I'll link to one below, but I didn't do any price shopping - it was the first one that came up, so you may be able to find it for less. On that site the 36" Bonanza hood is $4541, plus the Independent blower (sold separately) is about $500. Not cheap, but a lot less than the $8000 you mentioned. You could try calling Independent Hoods directly. Sometimes it's cheaper to buy direct from the source.

There is also custom hoods by Handcrafted Metal. They can make anything you want, but on their website they show a barrel hood on their stainless hoods tab, and on their copper hoods tab, a hood, not a barrel (kinda the opposite cause it's a concave curve instead of a convex barrel), but with the straps and rivets. Like I said, they'll make you whatever you want. But just to get an idea of cost, you can click on the photos; the copper concave hood looks like it'll cost about $3500 in the 36" size (includes the blower), and the straps and rivets cost more - the website shows a 52" hood where the straps and rivets are an additional $3300, so I'm guessing a 36" size the straps and rivets would add, I dunno, $2400? Still less expensive than Modernaire. And BTW, I think that concave copper hood is AWESOME.

36-inch Independent Bonanza Hood

Handcrafted Metal Copper BARREL Hoods without rivets/straps

Handcrafted Metal Copper Front Curve Hood. Wow.

Well, you start with a 55 gallon drum, a plasma cutter, and a TIG welder........

I'd try a local art college for a metal sculpture or ask at a metal forming facility for their most out of the box worker.

I live in Asheville. There are a lot of metal workers around here. That's why I thought that I might be able to source it locally. Unfortunately many of the artists in this area are extremely pricey to work with.

Thank you all so much for the leads. So basically what I have learned from this post is that the blower or so called "guts" are relatively inexpensive. It is the actual metal hood that's the money.

I'm a little flexible on shape. I just don't want one that tapers inward. So concave or barrel would do so long as the left and right side are parallel. I also thought that if I happen to find a stainless one in the right size and shape, I could have it powder coated and then maybe have an "artist" add some straps to it.

I started looking at the Trade Wind hoods that plllog mentioned above and what I found was that I would have to go through the distributer in Atlanta who would refer me to a dealer in my area. In other words, mark up after mark up. Everyone's got to make a profit right? Unfortunately appliance mark ups seem to be disproportionally high in my area. For example a 36 inch Blue Star range locally would cost me $1800 more than I can get it from ajmadison including shipping and set up. When I questioned the price difference I was told, "Because we can." :-(

Check out Rangecraft also. They make a barrel. Their hoods aren't cheap, but I found one on clearance in a neat shape for about half the regular price. I really wanted a barrel also, but couldn't pass up the deal I found on a unique shape. Like you, $8K is not in the budget. Their clearance stock fluctuates so you'd have to be patient.

I hope you end up with what you want. Frustrating when style can be so expensive.

You can try Vent A Hood they offer a barrel hood style, but as far as I can tell you can only get it in a 300 or 600 cfm in a 36" hood you can customize one on their website.

to make the lowest cost kitchen exhaust system, I would buy the guts for $100, or some price in that range. An inline blower. Installed somewhere around the ceiling.

Duct is galvanized sheet metal pre-bent into duct shapes. This is easy to buy. I would run duct a couple feet down from the blower.

a quarter cylinder shape is easy to make. To make a quarter barrel shape capture catchment container thingie, I would get sheet steel and curve it. Thin sheet steel that you rustpaint. Or galvanized sheet steel (also inexpensive it and can look like stainless steel). Once curved, it has to be attached to straight sides. These sides are quarter circle shapes, cut from the same sheet metal.

Attaching it could look ugly, but so what. You cover the ugliness later with a trim piece that you scrounge up somewhere.

That is the "hood". For a filter, I would cut the mosquito screen out of any old junk window, and roll it or fold it. Attach it inside the duct or inside the barrel at the entrance to the duct. Add other filtering material too. Anything can work as a filter. The goal is to pass the air through a kleenex and keep the gross stuff. (Later you throw it away.)

Hth.

Another thing you can do is try a "best offer". You have a good idea of what the mark-up is. It sounds like you'd be willing to pay the factory direct price from M-A (which in my sector is a total no-no just because of this kind of situation--you don't want to lose customers from having widely different prices in different locations). If you add a reasonable amount to what you think the direct price would be, maybe $500-1000, take your price, along with the exact hood you want to order written out, to the local dealer and say take it or leave it, the worst thing that can happen is they'll leave it.