Alaska keezer build... My first attempt

Hello there. After falling in love with this site and looking at dozens of keezers, I have decided to attempt my own. I purchased a 7.2 cubic foot magic chef off Craigslist for 125$. I plan on doing a coffin set up. Haven't yet ordered my plumbing and conversion supplies so any input on that would be greatly appreciated but I plan on running 3 1/6 barrel sankey commercial beers inside the freezer with a 10 lb co2 tank. I started building the base last night and will make my first attempt at attaching pictures below. I look forward to continuing to Continuing to log my progress on here.

7.2 magic chef



Outside of freezer.



Base completed, minus the wheels.



Started on my sides.



That's all for now. Can't wait to get off work!

lookin good!

Well got my frame completed this evening, still need caster wheels for it though. Home depot only had some that cost 45$, that seemed like to much so I'm shopping around tomorrow. Also tomorrow, I am planning on attaching the skin to the outside. I have tongue & groove pine here im going to use. Totally got the idea from hoppopotomus so all the credit goes his way for that idea. I am going to do it vertically, rather then horizontal however so it will look a lil different. That is all for now.



I guess I will need to run a couple more 2x4s around the outside horizontally to attach the tongue & groove to real quick tomorrow too.

Rather than using 2x4's horizontally to attach the tongue and groove boards, just use furring strips, or 1x2 boards. No need for the bulk of 2x4's, as they are just to help provide a nailing surface for the boards. You could use 1x3 or even 1x4 boards if you're really worried about it though.

Ya you are right. I came to that conclusion last night as well. 1x2s would be a lot easier and wouldn't make the cabinet any bigger really. My plan is to get the bottom cabinet finished in the next couple days then start working on the lid. Going to order all the keg conversion parts on Friday when I get paid. I think I am gonna have to run low profile sanke taps because I only got about 27" of height inside the freezer. In retrospect, I should have put a collar on. Oh well.

Siding and 2" caster wheels on tonight.

Frames up for tongue & groove siding


Siding on

More progress tonight. Got the top on and attached. Did some of the trim for the top as well.

View of the top


Top again


Top trim






Planning on takin the dive and ordering all the actual keg supplies tomorrow. Looking like 700-800$ worth.

Forgive me for saying, as I am but a wet behind the ears noob, but I just finished looking for kegerator parts and found that amazon seems to have pretty good deals, assuming that there is nothing on craigslist in your area. I saw two and three faucet towers on there for a fraction of the price of other sites. I am a big fan of supporting my LHBS, but when money's tight and there is that big of a difference sometimes you gotta do it. The project looks good!

It looks like you have some good space between the freezers walls and the wood wall. Make sure there is a way to vent the hot air. A chest freezers skin needs to breath to dissipate the heat. nice woodworking!

The back of the cabinet has been left open, plus the 3" or so space left around the freezer so I am not too worried about over-heating issues. If it becomes a problem, I will throw some cheap fans in the cabinet. Time for some trim work this weekend. Going to do black painted trim around the cabinet then start building the coffin.

What size holes should be drilled in the coffin for the shanks to fit threw? What spacing between shanks is desired? What kinda dimensions are people building their coffins? I'm going to run three taps if that helps. I also want to be able to run bar-style tap handles so is there clearance issues between the top of the coffin and the tap handles to insure the tap handle will open and close fully?

Thanks for the input everyone.

More work tonight

Mocked up tile layout


Started on my coffin

907_fellow said:

What size holes should be drilled in the coffin for the shanks to fit threw? What spacing between shanks is desired?.

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I used a 7/8 spade bit and had to slightly screw the shanks in and did 4 1/4" spacings I wouldn't go any closer I've got a 7 tapper

60sd said:

Forgive me for saying, as I am but a wet behind the ears noob, but I just finished looking for kegerator parts and found that amazon seems to have pretty good deals, assuming that there is nothing on craigslist in your area. I saw two and three faucet towers on there for a fraction of the price of other sites. I am a big fan of supporting my LHBS, but when money's tight and there is that big of a difference sometimes you gotta do it. The project looks good!

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Lot more than just a tower. If you have to start from scratch, you need kegs, co2 tank, QD's, tubing, regulator, manifold depending on amount of kegs, random hardware. If you go with a decent SS faucet, its easily ~50 bucks for a shank, faucet, and hardware. I just ordered 2 perlicks with shanks and it was 100 bucks.

Coffin.


Looking at the inside of the coffin.


15/16" hole drilled out for taps. Middle one is centered with the other two 4.5" out from that. The thickness I had to drill threw was 3", I have 3 1/8" shanks coming. Hopefully I can make it work.


Grout done, needs couple more whip downs but it's on there


Back of coffin, with two fan lines running out the back.

Grout some-what cleaned up. Still needs to be wiped down with a clean and apply the grout sealer. Also LED light installed under taps.

do you plan to have any sort of temperature control on it? if so, where will that go

Yep just ordered it. Johnson's temp controller. The a1149 or whatever it is. That will just e mounted to the back of it. No where special. This is how I got the fans and led light wired in a of now ...

Will it be difficult adjust temps if it's back there? You would have to slide it out each time. I guess you wouldn't be changing the temp that often tho.

Ya it's on wheels. Got a dual probe thermometer to monitor both the coffin and and the freezer temps. Once I get it dialed in it should be fine. While I am dialing the temps in, it will literally take 1 second to move it away from the while to adjust temps.

Looking good! Are you planning on staining it?

I am planning on filing in all the nail holes and sanding it. Then just applying polyurethane clear coat to the whole thing. My trim is going to be black.

That's the plan

The project looks amazing! I've really enjoyed following it's progress, and you've really gotten after it and mad alot of progress in a short time. For what it's worth, I've had good success using Minwax stainable wood filler in the small tube for filling in holes from an 18 ga brad nailer. I use a razor blade to cut open the tip to just bigger than the size of the hole (start small). It fills nicely and sands down with minimal effort and is barely noticable once the project is finished. The only problem is that once you open the tube, it seems to only be good for about 4 weeks; after that it dries out.

Can you show us some pictures of where the keezer will be kept once it's finished?

Keep up the good work!

It's stayin in the garage for now. I'm only 25. Still renting a house so the corner of the garage is where she is going for now.

Thanks for the support and advice on wood filler. I will look into it!

By the way, where are you at in Alaska? My wife's from Fairbanks, and still has a lot of family up there.

Kenai peninsula.



Took the night off from the keezer to catch salmon. And drink beer of course.

Nice! I've been salmon fishing in Anchorage, Dutch Harbor, and Kodiak Island. Kodiak had by far the best fishing while I was there. Caught mostly pinks with some silver thrown in. My personal best was a 32" silver on Kodiak. The filets were massive...

We also caught several hundred black Rock fish in Kodiak. Those are good eatin.

I put myself through college set netting on the west side of Kodiak. I love AK. Keezer is looking great also. It reminds me a lot of mine only yours is gonna be nicer. Thanks for sharing your build

That's sweet man. Kodiak is awesome. I have a mountain goat hunt scheduled over there this October. I remember looking at your build while I was in the planning stages of mine. I dig the antler tap handles, definitely considering doing atleast one of them for mine.

I'm doing a lot of finish work right now... Filing nail holes and sandin the whole thing down. Going to apply the grout sealer tonight and hopefully attach trim in the next day or two. Then the whole thing will get bathed with clear gloss polyurethane.

All my keg parts will be here next week. This is the sh*tty part about living in Alaska. Fed-ex and UPS seem to like to take their time gettin stuff up here.

Mountain goat would make for a great and unique handle. They really weren't that tough to make. The dust from drilling/grinding smells like hell though. You guys also have some great craft brews up there. Especially like the wee heavy from cassik's and liquid sunshine from kodiak brewing. I think their beer is only available in kodiak though, so be sure to check them out when you're there for the goat hunt if you haven't already. It's just across the street from the seaport and the island seafoods cannery.

Anyhow, sorry to jack your thread with alaska talk. I'm looking forward to seeing your keezer all finished up. Keep the updates coming

I don't think I will make tap handles out of mountain goat horns. That critter will be mounted on my wall.

Drip tray and dual probe thermometer will arrive today. Johnson's temp controller and my low profile sanke taps will be here Friday. Still waiting to hear back from keg-cowboy on my 3 tap conversion kit. Looks like that will be the item holding me up.

The damn salmon are getting in the way of my keezer build this week. 100,000 + sockeye salmon are swimming up the river each day. It's like a 1 minute drive from my front door. Tough to focus on the build when there is that much fun to be had.

If I had that salmon problem, I don't think I'd be at work, or on the computer. I'd be out fishin!

looking forward to seeing the finished product. looking good.

I'm up in Fairbanks. I've made it down to Kenai a couple of times, beautiful area!

907_fellow said:

Kenai peninsula.

Took the night off from the keezer to catch salmon. And drink beer of course.

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I've been absent for a long time from HBT due to a crazy work schedule and family obligations......but I'm back! The keezer looks great and I'm glad that my thread helped you out. Please let me know if you have any questions or need any help, but it looks like you have it handled! Can't wait to see the final product with it all trimmed out. Nice job man!

P.S. I'm finally getting some of my other projects rolling again and have several other threads going that I'll be updating in the very near future if your interested.

Point taken on the goat trophy. I used sheds for my handles. Also...you are making me miss Alaska something godawful

wncbrewer said:

Also...you are making me miss Alaska something godawful

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Ditto. 101F here today, and sweltering. Of course now its storming, so tomorrow it will be 100F and about 80% humidity...

Got my temp controller in yesterday. What temps is everyone running in their keezer? I'm just gonna be running 3 commercial kegs with no special temp requirements.

I keep my keezer at 38 F and my coffin at 44 F.

Perfect. I need to insulate my coffin a little better. I just used spray foam to seal all the joints but haven't yet added any insulation. I'm sure it would make the system more efficient if I wasnt loosing as much from my coffin. So far, it seems the temp difference between the coffin and keezer is only 2 or 3 degrees. The fans I'm using might be a little overkill but that's ok.

Another question, are people placing their temp probes for the temp controller inside water to maintain a more constant temp reading? I also have a dual probe thermometer to monitor the temps in the keezer as well as the coffin in addition to the temp controller.