nood with Keg to brew kettle questions

[HoppingRazor]

Sup brew family,
As stated above Im new here to HBT.com, I finally brewed my first 5 gallon batch of PSA IPA yesterday and had to say Im totally hooked to homebrewing. Anyway back to the topic, I have a keg that I would like to turn into a brew kettle. Its one of those half kegs (standard party keg), 15.5 gallons I think. I have it and just don't know what to do with it. I figured I could use it to boil 10 gallon extract/dme batches, and possibly some AG usage in the future. I figured I at least have to cut the top off, but what else? I would like to add a spigot of some sort, a thermometer would be nice, but Im not a welder, so Im not sure how to get this done, at minimum I would like the spigot to drain so I can filter the wort while its going into the fermenter.
Thanks for the advice...

 

[Suthrncomfrt1884]

Spigots are a must unless you want to hassle with a racking cane. You can buy weldless valves from bargainfittings.com for fairly cheap. I have weldless on all three of my keggle conversions and none of them have ever leaked.

I'd also look into putting a dip tube on it so you can get EVERYTHING out of it and not waste wort. There's all sorts of ways to do this. When I get home, I'll post a picture of mine.