Vintage Coleman Cooler Jockey box conversion

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fall-line

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I set out to create a portable beer serving solution for my up coming wedding reception, and hopefully many more events to come in the future. At first I was torn between a portable kegerator (there are many great examples in this forum), jockey box, or just an insulated ice box for the kegs and picnic taps.

With only a few weeks before the wedding I was about to take the easy way out until I remembered the old steel sided coleman cooler in the attic of my mothers house. Thus the jockey box was born.
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This cooler was manufactured in the mid 1960s, and had been used as the family camping cooler by my grandparents when my mom was a growing up. It was then passed on to my mother when she had children, and we used it on our car camping trips well into the 90s. As you can see it was in fairly decent condition for its age, but far from mint.

I decided to strip the paint down to bare metal for my conversion. I first stripped the paint with a stripping wheel on my drill and angle grinder, as well as a dremel for the fine work. I then hit it with a medium grit flapper wheel on my angle grinder to remove any rust spots and give the metal some texture.
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I decided not to skimp on the hardware considering the effort and history going into the project, so added some nice shanks and Perlic faucets. The steel was easy to drill, and the insulation is just packed styrofoam underneath the vinyl interior.
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To this point, I'm very happy with how it turned out. It's not pristine, as the vinyl coloration indicates. I've also purposefully left some of the grinding marks in the metal. I haven't yet sealed the metal either (this is mild steel I believe and will rust quickly if left untreated) but will be doing that today. I've got a cold plate that fits great and is currently hooked up to a keg full of PBW solution.

I'll post some interior photos once it is fully assembled, as well as an action shot or two of it's debut.. serving 4 kegs of tasty homebrew at my wedding reception. I'm not sure that my grandmother would be too pleased with the modifications, but I'm thrilled to be honoring the history of this cooler. It was realistically going to be heading for the scrap heap at some point as it was, and now it will be prominently featured and enjoyed my groups of friends and family for years to come.


Prost!
 
Forgive the background mess. I've got several pre-wedding projects going on a simultaneously in there. On an unrelated note, if anyone in the Seattle area wants to rent a photo booth for their event, I can save you some money. ;)
 
That looks great. A nice paint job and some auto-detailing products to clean up the vinyl will make that thing sparkle.
 
Thank you. Yes, I look forward to shining this thing up even more in the future and will definitely be looking to further cleaning (possibly painting) of the vinyl. Unfortunately I don't think I'll have the chance to do if before the wedding, but that'll just have to be ok.
 
This thing performed like a champ with a couple of bags of ice in it during our wedding reception. It was 80ºF+ outside, and it poured cold beer all evening, until the (4) corny kegs ran out!

Big success all around. I got glowing reviews of the beers (Pale, Wheat Blonde, and Yooper's dead guy ale clone) from all who drank i. I will post a few pics of it in action once the photographer get the proofs to me.

I'm looking forward to using it again at a buddy's wedding in a few months.
 
A couple of 'finished' photos from the wedding reception. I ran out of time to fully polish it up, but will get that done before a buddy's wedding coming up next month. The beer was a HUGE success with all who attended, and I'm really glad I put the effort into the brewing and jockey box conversion before the big day.


As always, big thanks to the HBT community for the help and advice.

Jockey Box.jpg


Beer1.jpg
 
Very nice! I just made a jockey box out of an old Vintage igloo cooler that's metal as well. Looks just like yours but has a different latch. Best part is it has built in bottle openers in the side handles! Good work, looks just like mine but I used 2 50 ft stainless coils instead of the cold plate. I was looking on eBay but ended up finding a local place to make the coils cheaper than a used cold plate.
 
Very nice, I would love to see your photos too if you have them. I love the bottle openers in the handles of this one too!

Good work on the coils too, that was my original plan until I found this cold plate on craigslist.
 
Very cool. My grandma has an old Coleman cooler just like that collecting dust on her patio. One of these days I may just have to see if I can take it off her hands :)


joe
 
Minor update. After my wedding the box developed some surface rust (as expected) since it hadn't been properly sealed. I decided my favorite part of the box had been a small back section where I'd left the grinding marks un polished, so I wen't over the whole thing again with a 120 grit wheel on my angle grinder and then sealed it with polyurethane. It's holding up well now, though I may refinish it again next year.

Here is a photo of the box in use at a friends wedding a few weeks ago. It was a big hit as it served 2 commercial kegs and 2 kegs of hombrew.

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Very nice. I tried poly coating some sheet metal so it wouldn't rust but I guess the poly can breath to some extent and it rusted up right under the poly. I hope yours doesn't do that. I'm going to put mine to some good use this weekend at a party.
 
I love this project. I am in the process of finding an old Coleman cooler to make the same thing for tailgating and outdoor parties. This looks so much nicer than the jockey boxes made out of new plastic coolers.
 
Looks very much like mine! I found a similar (slightly newer, I think) cooler at a flea market for $4. A friend told me about a deal on HBT for Perlicks with shanks for about $25/ea and I found a cold plate on eBay for about $40 shipped. I routed an edge on some scrap hardwood that I had around and mounted that to the front with the shanks through it. I used it today to serve a cider at a friends cookout and out worked like magic. Those old coolers will really hold the cold!
 
How well do these old Coleman coolers insulate? How much ice have you been going through?

I really want to get one of these vintage coolers and perform a similar conversion. The only thing stopping me is that fact that I can get a new cooler for a lot cheaper and it should keep ice a lot longer. Unless of course I manage to find one at a thrift store or flea market for dirt cheap. They are currently going for $50 - $80 for one in fair condition. I realize that the old ones won't keep ice quite as long as new ones but I am willing to give some on that to gain the cool factor. I just don't want to be adding ice every 2 - 3 hours. Please share you experiences with these coolers.
 
Very nice cooler / jockey box!

It's not pristine, as the vinyl coloration indicates.

Try Fusion spray paint for plastic.

It was realistically going to be heading for the scrap heap at some point as it was.

Don't ever throw out vintage Coleman cooler. These can go for big bucks on eBay.

How well do these old Coleman coolers insulate? How much ice have you been going through?

You'd be surprised. The old metal Coleman's insulate just as well as the new ones.
 
How well do these old Coleman coolers insulate? How much ice have you been going through?

I really want to get one of these vintage coolers and perform a similar conversion. The only thing stopping me is that fact that I can get a new cooler for a lot cheaper and it should keep ice a lot longer. Unless of course I manage to find one at a thrift store or flea market for dirt cheap. They are currently going for $50 - $80 for one in fair condition. I realize that the old ones won't keep ice quite as long as new ones but I am willing to give some on that to gain the cool factor. I just don't want to be adding ice every 2 - 3 hours. Please share you experiences with these coolers.

Ice usage will be determined to a much greater extent by the temperature and amount of the beer going through the jockey box rather than the cooler. Insulation value of the cooler is not that critical IMHO unless you are trying to serve a small amout of beer over several days.
 
Ice usage will be determined to a much greater extent by the temperature and amount of the beer going through the jockey box rather than the cooler. Insulation value of the cooler is not that critical IMHO unless you are trying to serve a small amout of beer over several days.

I'm with wilserbrewer on this. Mine seems to insulate fairly well considering the age of the thing, but that's not really the point for most jockey box applications. The overwhelming majority of energy will be exchanged by the beer coming in and out, rather than the walls of the thing.

When I served 4 kegs at the wedding last summer, we changed the ice twice in 6 hours. On the other hand (and this may be more relevant to your question), when I set this up for a three day weekend recently and only served one corny keg, I was impressed to find the block ice still hanging in there on the morning of the 3rd day.
 
Fall-line, great build! I am planning a similar project for my wedding in June. I obtained the vintage coleman cooler already. I am now debating between coils or a cold plate. I have been leaning towards coils, because I hear they are better for consistent pouring. However, I hear that you need like 120 feet coils if you want to guarantee cold foam-free pours for heavily active systems. So now I am thinking I will need to chill the kegs and use either 50/70 ft coils, or go the cold plate route. Cost is the factor driving this debate. My question is, how well did your setup perform for the wedding? How active was the box? Any tips to ensure cold foam-free beer all night?

Thanks!
 
Fall-line, great build! I am planning a similar project for my wedding in June. I obtained the vintage coleman cooler already. I am now debating between coils or a cold plate. I have been leaning towards coils, because I hear they are better for consistent pouring. However, I hear that you need like 120 feet coils if you want to guarantee cold foam-free pours for heavily active systems. So now I am thinking I will need to chill the kegs and use either 50/70 ft coils, or go the cold plate route. Cost is the factor driving this debate. My question is, how well did your setup perform for the wedding? How active was the box? Any tips to ensure cold foam-free beer all night?

Thanks!

Sorry I missed this the other day. I went with the cold plate originally due to cost, in that I found one for sale used locally for a good deal. After some tweaking and testing though I was very happy with the results.

This box was very active at the wedding, we served 5 corny kegs in ~4 hours and had zero problems with foam, etc. I have had a few minor issues at subsequent events though, and have these observations.

1) make sure your line size is consistent. For best results on my cold plate I used standard 3/8 beer line from the keg to the cold plate, and then 1/4 beer line from the plate to the tap. This was easy to decide on since the barb sizes on the cold plate dictated this choice. Later, I installed longer and larger ID lines, and got some foaming.

2) pre-chill your beer if possible. To be safe, at my wedding (and the other weddings this box has performed at) I had the kegs on ice in addition to using ice in the box. This hels create perfect foam free pours of cold beer. At one point I served out of a keg sitting at room temperature (about 70ºF). It came out cold, but had a bit of a foaming issue.

3) Make sure you plan on what to do with the melt of water from the box. If you use a cold plate, it's important that you allow the melted water to drain off, leaving your block ice in direct contact with the plate. I didn't think too much about this during my wedding and by the end there was a bit of water running where it shouldn't have.. not a big deal, but something I fixed for subsequent events. I stuck a rubber tube in the drain port of my cooler and let it sit in a bucket.

All in all, I've had great success with my jockey box. Taking the above into account, you'll do great. Just be sure you finish your build in enough time that you can test it out on a keg or two before the big day. :)

Cheers and good luck! Congrats on your wedding!

:mug:
 
Sorry I missed this the other day. I went with the cold plate originally due to cost, in that I found one for sale used locally for a good deal. After some tweaking and testing though I was very happy with the results.

This box was very active at the wedding, we served 5 corny kegs in ~4 hours and had zero problems with foam, etc. I have had a few minor issues at subsequent events though, and have these observations.

1) make sure your line size is consistent. For best results on my cold plate I used standard 3/8 beer line from the keg to the cold plate, and then 1/4 beer line from the plate to the tap. This was easy to decide on since the barb sizes on the cold plate dictated this choice. Later, I installed longer and larger ID lines, and got some foaming.

2) pre-chill your beer if possible. To be safe, at my wedding (and the other weddings this box has performed at) I had the kegs on ice in addition to using ice in the box. This hels create perfect foam free pours of cold beer. At one point I served out of a keg sitting at room temperature (about 70ºF). It came out cold, but had a bit of a foaming issue.

3) Make sure you plan on what to do with the melt of water from the box. If you use a cold plate, it's important that you allow the melted water to drain off, leaving your block ice in direct contact with the plate. I didn't think too much about this during my wedding and by the end there was a bit of water running where it shouldn't have.. not a big deal, but something I fixed for subsequent events. I stuck a rubber tube in the drain port of my cooler and let it sit in a bucket.

All in all, I've had great success with my jockey box. Taking the above into account, you'll do great. Just be sure you finish your build in enough time that you can test it out on a keg or two before the big day. :)

Cheers and good luck! Congrats on your wedding!

:mug:

Thanks Fall-Line! I appreciate the advice. I think I'm going with 50' coils and I'm going to plan on keeping the kegs chilled.
 
i probably should have cut them to the right length better. not so pretty
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I'm looking at making one very similar to this. What fitting are you using to go from what I presume to be 3/8 OD tubing to the beer nut? Is that a specialized compression beer nut?
 
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