Hey everyone,
Before I get into pics from my first build I have to say thank you to everyone on HBT. I am a new brewer and was turned onto the site by a couple buddies that I am now brewing with. In just the last two weeks I have spent hours upon hours on the site and have learned an incredible amount. Looking forward to putting all of this aquired knowledge into action.
Without further adieu...
I started with an old beat up (legally aquired) Keg that was on my back deck for about 2 years.
I first removed the Keg spear. This keg was easy to remove the spear. Pop off the ring and a slight turn and it pulled right out. Next I filled the Keg up with PBW solution and let it sit over night to clean out the nastiness that had been sitting in this keg for years.
With the inside clean I began working on the outside. I used a combination of WD-40 (Worked pretty well but took a while) and Paint thinner (Worked well) to begin removing old stickers and adhesive. I thought I was finished and moved on only to find out I didnt do quite as good a job of prepping the keg as I should have. I will get to this later.
Next step was to begin polishing the keg. For this I used a 4.5" Angle grinder and 3 levels of polish. First is the Gator Fine pad, second is #2 Polish followed by #5 polish. I bought all of these at Lowe's. I tried later to find these at Home Depot and they did not carry them. When polishing a keg you should always make sure to wear safety equipment. Keep in mind that you are basically sanding SS and this means lots of little particles in the air. You do not want to be swallowing these or getting them in your eyes so eye protection and some type of mask is highly recommended. I also wore a hat, gloves and was basically covered from head to toe. Some of this had to do with the fact that I was dealing with Snowmageden here in GA and it was cold out and about to dump snow. (Save the crap about being cold in the south, Im from the North originally and I know what cold is, Ive just been conditioned to the South over the last few years)
First polishing step completed in about an hour. I highly recommend finding a way to elevate the keg so you are not bending over the whole time. I created a small table out of some decking I had in the garage and a coffee table. This along with my lawn chair saved my back. After a while my neighbor heard the racket and came down to see what was going on. He is very handy and helped me out quite a bit. First he showed me that I had not done a good enough job removing the adhesive. He brought down a stronger chemical that helped. He actually caught me about 1/4 of the way through the first polish and saved me a bit of time by going back and re-cleaning the keg again so that I was polishing and not just moving adhsive around the keg.
With my neighbor there we decided to start making our cuts in the keg. We used the Angle Grinder again to make this cut. We used a 2" T piece of PVC as a guide. The PVC just dropped down into the hole and helps to keep a steady distance and get a good cut. Be very careful when you finish this cut as both the edges of the keg and the piece cut out will be incredibly sharp and dangerous. We used a grinding stone to smooth out the cuts because using the angle grinder just seemed a little dangerous.
More to come tomorrow......
Before I get into pics from my first build I have to say thank you to everyone on HBT. I am a new brewer and was turned onto the site by a couple buddies that I am now brewing with. In just the last two weeks I have spent hours upon hours on the site and have learned an incredible amount. Looking forward to putting all of this aquired knowledge into action.
Without further adieu...
I started with an old beat up (legally aquired) Keg that was on my back deck for about 2 years.
I first removed the Keg spear. This keg was easy to remove the spear. Pop off the ring and a slight turn and it pulled right out. Next I filled the Keg up with PBW solution and let it sit over night to clean out the nastiness that had been sitting in this keg for years.
With the inside clean I began working on the outside. I used a combination of WD-40 (Worked pretty well but took a while) and Paint thinner (Worked well) to begin removing old stickers and adhesive. I thought I was finished and moved on only to find out I didnt do quite as good a job of prepping the keg as I should have. I will get to this later.
Next step was to begin polishing the keg. For this I used a 4.5" Angle grinder and 3 levels of polish. First is the Gator Fine pad, second is #2 Polish followed by #5 polish. I bought all of these at Lowe's. I tried later to find these at Home Depot and they did not carry them. When polishing a keg you should always make sure to wear safety equipment. Keep in mind that you are basically sanding SS and this means lots of little particles in the air. You do not want to be swallowing these or getting them in your eyes so eye protection and some type of mask is highly recommended. I also wore a hat, gloves and was basically covered from head to toe. Some of this had to do with the fact that I was dealing with Snowmageden here in GA and it was cold out and about to dump snow. (Save the crap about being cold in the south, Im from the North originally and I know what cold is, Ive just been conditioned to the South over the last few years)
First polishing step completed in about an hour. I highly recommend finding a way to elevate the keg so you are not bending over the whole time. I created a small table out of some decking I had in the garage and a coffee table. This along with my lawn chair saved my back. After a while my neighbor heard the racket and came down to see what was going on. He is very handy and helped me out quite a bit. First he showed me that I had not done a good enough job removing the adhesive. He brought down a stronger chemical that helped. He actually caught me about 1/4 of the way through the first polish and saved me a bit of time by going back and re-cleaning the keg again so that I was polishing and not just moving adhsive around the keg.
With my neighbor there we decided to start making our cuts in the keg. We used the Angle Grinder again to make this cut. We used a 2" T piece of PVC as a guide. The PVC just dropped down into the hole and helps to keep a steady distance and get a good cut. Be very careful when you finish this cut as both the edges of the keg and the piece cut out will be incredibly sharp and dangerous. We used a grinding stone to smooth out the cuts because using the angle grinder just seemed a little dangerous.
More to come tomorrow......
