New Keezer Build-Design Suggestions???

Just picked up a mew 13cuft Fridgidaire Chest Freezer yesterday for my build. I have a 2 buddies who is doing all of the woodwork on it. One friend who is doing all of the main work is doing it because he loves to build stuff. The other guy went to school for it and does customer vineer panels.

The entire keezer will be wrapped in Cherry Wood with a mahogony stain. It will have all solid wood raised panels. Due to the size of the keezer it will have 3 panels on the front and 2 on the sides.

I am thinking of adding 1 (Middle) or 2 (sides) of the panels to have a maple vineer inlay of a beer glass/mug. Any other cool ideas?

I will try and post pics but since the friends are doing all of the work on it, it may be tough.

I've started on the keezer yesterday. Frame is made with 2x6's. They are glued and put Kreg Screws in them. I put locking casters underneath. The keezer frame on the sides will come apart by unbolting 2 lag bolts each side incase it ever needs to be taken apart. There is slots so that way everything will always go back together the same way without any adjustments. Hoping to be able to begin to work on it again Tuesday.

Are you gonna do a collar or a coffin?

I'll be doing a coffin similar to yours. I need to get over to my friends wood shop, but all the sides are almost done. Starting to design the top and coffin. The top will come of by unbolting the lid. Jeebas, where did you buy your rope lighting?

Hardware - I am using 5 secondary taprite regulators, new alum 10lbs tank, 5 perlick Perl Faucets with 4inch SS shanks, 5 Sanke Couplers (for now)

Not to pick a fight here, but cherry naturally darkens with time. If you stain it mahogany in 20 years it will be black as coal dust. If you are going to cover up the natural cherry anyway, you might consider a cheaper wood. Just a thought.

Can't wait to see this thing come together. Great work so far! Keep the pics. coming!

gtpeebs1 said:

I'll be doing a coffin similar to yours. I need to get over to my friends wood shop, but all the sides are almost done. Starting to design the top and coffin. The top will come of by unbolting the lid. Jeebas, where did you buy your rope lighting?

Hardware - I am using 5 secondary taprite regulators, new alum 10lbs tank, 5 perlick Perl Faucets with 4inch SS shanks, 5 Sanke Couplers (for now)

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http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0040FJ27S/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Works great until you break the lighting strip like me :cross:

You can get plain old monochrome LED light strips at HomeDepot I think. But the ones available online are a much better deal, and being able to change the colors is neat!

I purchased the 18" long LED roap light from HD for under my taps and from what I remember, it was dirt cheap. I just remember being shocked at how reasonable the price was. From what I remember it was only around $5.

It is already built with the sides as cherry. My friend who has been helping me has all the sides built and we are working on the top. I may just keep it natural wood color but we will see. There will be more pics tonight.

gtpeebs1 said:

It is already built with the sides as cherry. My friend who has been helping me has all the sides built and we are working on the top. I may just keep it natural wood color but we will see. There will be more pics tonight.

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What will the bar top and back splash be ( if you are going with a draft box)?

Just purchased the LED strip! I like the feature of being able to control lighting colors and for $40, why the hell not!!! haha

The top will be Cherry too, probably with a single slate 2CM Granite so there will be no grout lines. I'm in banking and one of my customers is a granite fabricator so he is just giving me a leftover piece for the top and the backsplash. I'm thinking of a blackish granite but am open to suggestions! =)

Another vote for not covering up that beautiful cherry with dark stain!

Some pics of progress and some of the workshop. I think I'm just going to put a few coats of polyuerethane on it and call it a day. I did some test pieces of wood.

Here are some pics of the Lag bolts holding the side together which will come apart in minutes but is suuuper sturdy. Also is a pic of Red Mahagony stain and just polyuerethane.

We will be building the coffin tomorrow! Hoping to be filled when I move to my new place in mid March! I'll have pics up tomorrow

Here is an updated picture. I went with Polyeurethane and it came out much darker than I had expected so I am happy with it! On the top, we used 3/4 inch plywood to sandwich the lid to add strength. We should be designing the rest of the top this weekend.

Lookin good

do you have any space between the freezer and the wood panels for air flow?

Beautiful work....very very nice! Can't wait to see the coffin on this bad boy. Keep it up!

Did you do the woodwork on those cabinets yourself?

Yeah, all the the woodwork was done by a friend of mine and myself in his home garage shop. Those "cabinets" are the actually casing of the keezer. Due to how the frame was built it does allow for some airflow and there will be a small fan by the compressor. The nice part of this keezer is that it will break about with less than 10 Lagbolts and about 20mins as I move pretty frequently! =) The corner "towers" are cut out of 4 pierces of wood and make a nice break point when everything comes apart.
Thanks guys! It's a great project!

Almost finished!! Just have to polyeurethane it and plumb it and ill be set!! What do ya guys think?

Also getting the single slate black 2cm granite cut with week! Cheers to no grout lines!

How much you paying for the granite? think i might do the same

My granite is free! I am in banking and one of my good customers is a granite fabricator so he has some left over 2CM slabs that he already re-couped his cost on that he said I can have and he will cut it for me for free too. The best granite is free granite! haha I think you can usually find a slab for $300 but that is without being cut yet. Kinda spendy.

Uhg, thats how much i would be spending if i go my original route (distressed copper with epoxy on top)

Looking good! Subscribed!

Yeah it's expensive! If I didn't have a good hookup on the granite, I'd be doing granite tiles. I'd go look through some granite yards for remnant pieces and wheel & deal. They have already re-couped the cost on it, but then you also have the extra expense of having it fabricated! I'd only go with the 2CM granite as the other stuff would be too thick & heavy.

Just got the granite back from the granite fabricator the other day. The cost of the slab without fabrication labor was $1350 with another $700 in fabrication costs. He gave me the slab for free and the labor was free so all in all I couldn't be happier!! It is cut so perfect that I won't even have to trim any gaps anywhere. He did a fabulous job!! Here are the updated pics. I'm going to finish the trim tomorrow and it should be up and running full of beer by Tuesday! =)

gtpeebs1 said:

Just got the granite back from the granite fabricator the other day. The cost of the slab without fabrication labor was $1350 with another $700 in fabrication costs. He gave me the slab for free and the labor was free so all in all I couldn't be happier!! It is cut so perfect that I won't even have to trim any gaps anywhere. He did a fabulous job!! Here are the updated pics. I'm going to finish the trim tomorrow and it should be up and running full of beer by Tuesday! =)

<img src="https://www.homebrewtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=54913"/>

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Good god - what kind of granite is that? I just got a quote to do my whole kitchen for less than 8k (95/sq ft) and that's finished and installed!

I'm not sure to be exact! Haha. The sticker on the slab said $1350, but when I picked it up he said it was at least $700 so I may be mistaken and that could be for granite + labor.

gtpeebs1 said:

I'm not sure to be exact! Haha. The sticker on the slab said $1350, but when I picked it up he said it was at least $700 so I may be mistaken and that could be for granite + labor.

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Sweet je-zuz brotha ice a corny and grab some cheap growlers, tote it down to his shop and make sure that crew is properly rewarded. What a great find!

Late addition after overcoming shock: Looks great, BTW!!!!! LOL

Thanks guys!!! Its really turning out better than I could have ever imagined! I plan to reward them nicely!!! He was going to give me granite tiles but he said he wanted to take care of me and have it look better without all the grout lines

Here is a a video of the lights. Get better pics when I move it to the house

Man, that is fine work! Sick workshop too, I'd kill for that vacuum system!