FuzzeWuzze's Coffin Keezer + Cabinet storage Build

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FuzzeWuzze

I Love DIY
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So, ive had the freezer for a year, had the taps for a year...and finally getting around to making the coffin keezer. Im glad that i waited though as i have found a lot of ideas that i wouldnt have initially implemented.

The end result is based on someone who posted their work on Reddit and it fits exactly what we need because we dont have enough cabinet space for all of our pint/margarita/wine glasses, or for our growing wine collection and of course liquor. The end goal is 5 taps, 4 Beer taps off my 5 gallon kegs, and 1 soda water tap off a 2.5 gallon keg i can cram in on the hump for use with sodastream flavorings for cola/tonic/etc.

*NOTE* THIS IS NOT MINE, THIS IS MY TARGET! :)
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Here is the entire Imgur album of his build
http://imgur.com/a/MCI0j#0

This is the basic premise im using for the end, with a few modifications, first we will be mirroring the left and right side and the front left/right(wine holders on both sides rather than an area for glasses, the reason for this was to keep the front cleaner and more symmetrical looking. In his build he used the right side for CO2 tank storage, but my CO2 tank fits snuggly inside my keezer and the dual regulator takes up so much space we'd lose the entire right side basically. And since the end goal of this is more storage + beer, im just keeping it in the freezer even if it does make things super crammed and untidy with hoses everywhere.

So we'll have wine holding on either side of the front as well, and the reasoning for this was I need to account for having cats, and kids sometime soon...so this open design has to go or else there'd be broken glass everywhere...so i need to mount two cabinet doors on front and one on each side. I already did a basic cost of these and two basic shaker oak doors with hinge slots cut is about ~40 each from a local cabinet shop. We may decide to go with glass center cabinet doors, which for whatever reason cost an arm and a leg...maybe someone with cabinet experience can explain to me why a full door is 40 but one that is essentially empty in the middle is 60-70 and doesnt even include the glass which im guessing is another 20 bucks at least...

This is my diary of my (hopefully) not so slow build, hopefully it comes out! The hope is to take about a month to complete everything, but it may take a bit longer.

Day 1: Built the basic frame stand, took me a few hours to cut all and screw all the wood together, lesson for the day? Go buy knee pads for future days, being on my knee's for 2-3 hours on the concrete slab sucked. It could have definately been put together faster by a professional im sure, but since the base is so damn important to the rest of the measurements lining up i was super anal about getting everything as close as possible and so far it seems to have worked...

The plan is to have 8" deep cabinets on either side and 8" on the front. It appears the general overall dimensions of the final cabinet will be somewhere around 58" long, 32" deep and the countertop should be at around 3'. Which im guessing will put the taps at around 3.5'? No idea how tall typical coffins are....

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That is amazing. Most of the coffin keezers don't do anything for me. Cool, a wood box with taps, heh. This is fantastic.
 
That is amazing. Most of the coffin keezers don't do anything for me. Cool, a wood box with taps, heh. This is fantastic.

I agree, i had been looking at keezers and really not having any wood working skills or knowledge was more or less destined to just building a standard coffin then finding some way to build a small cabinet to stick near it for our glasses...when i saw this i bookmarked it immediately, copied/downloaded the entire Imgur album(which i just added to the main post) incase it ever disappears..it fits what we need exactly! And he was kind enough to document in photos the general build process well enough i feel confident i can recreate it....and that is the general goal of this post as well, to hopefully give step by step instructions of whatever i end up with in hopes it helps someone else later...

Unfortunately he didnt have a lot to share in the reddit post as it seemed he kind of winged it as he went along with the help of a professional woodworking friend for things he messed up...

My largest concern i need to figure out at this point is the lid...i plan on like him just putting some wood flooring or similar on the lid(not granite or tiles like some others)...so i think my standard hinges should be able to handle it...i cant decide if i should design in a small 25ish lb gas strut to assist or just do as he and many others do and cram a stick between the frame and lid to keep it open.
 
This keezer is amazing. Couple of questions:

How hard is it to get your kegs in there! Looks like quite a reach!
Do you have fans set up to blow cold are up in the tower?

I may be able to convince swimbo to let me keep taps in the house if I build something like this!
 
The one posted is only my "End goal" from someone elses keezer, not mine..i wish!

I intend to mount both fans in the coffin box to blow air around, as the insides of mine with 5 kegs + CO2 is packed.

Getting kegs in and out might prove to be a pain, but we'll see.
 
I understand this isn't yours...but that hasn't stopped the chubbie I just got...That's some damn fine craftsmanship
 
I understand this isn't yours...but that hasn't stopped the chubbie I just got...That's some damn fine craftsmanship

What amazed me was how well the "crappy" generic construction plywood that has no laminate on it looks with the stain...
 
What amazed me was how well the "crappy" generic construction plywood that has no laminate on it looks with the stain...

I was thinking the same thing. This is awesome though. I have been looking for some ideas for my keezer and I think that this is it. Please keep us posted!
 
Day 2: The day where everything goes wrong

First problem, i realized that i shouldnt have put the front crossbeam on, because now it was so close to the other 2x4 that i couldnt get my drill in to screw in the uprights...no biggie ill just pull off the cross beam and screw it in again no harm no foul. Turns out yesterday i was an idiot and predrilled and screwed right through a knot in the 2x4....also turns out that made it impossible to get the screw back out. I ended up having to go back to HDepot and buy an extraction kit to get it out as it was stripped beyond repair and after an hour of fighting it i just spent the $8 on an extraction kit and on some new drill bits(info below).

Second problem, so that hole was open but i wanted to put in another fresh screw next to it to make sure the beam stayed upright and snug. Put drill bit in, drill hole...then the drill bit starts spinning in the drill...horrible design by Ryobi making the drill bits smooth instead of hex shaped. I wiggled the drill bit around VERY tiny amount, and the bit snaps off! At this point im laughing, but whatever half a drill bit embedded in the base isnt going to ruin anything....ended up buying the new drill bits with a proper hex shape on the base for the drill to grip.

All in all though it call came together, after dry fitting the freezer it appears that one side is MINORLY undercut and not as flush with the lid as the other side...maybe 1/8th an inch, but im not worried about it..i dont think it will be a problem when it comes time to lay down the lid since it will be glued to the freezer anyways...but if it is when i get to that point ill glue some small wood shims on the uprights.

Also realized i shouldnt be screwing my castor wheels in, so ill need to get some bolts tommorrow..its getting a bit unwieldy to move around already sliding it on the floor so i'd like to get it up on the wheels ASAP. I had already bought 2 locking 3" wheels for the rear and 2 standard 3" wheels for the front from HDepot earlier last week.

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Day 3: We are now mobile, got a bunch of 1/4 inch bolts and got everything drilled and the wheels bolted on. Also spent about an hour and a half at HDepot staring at wood and figuring things out. Solid oak is very expensive, but they dont sell 1x8 sheets of oak plywood, so need to decide if im going to rip my own off a 4x8 sheet or just go with cheaper wood for all of the interior visible cabinet framing. Im leaning towards just cheaper wood like the original design using Common Lumber 1x8's, when their stained a dark walnut and inside of a cabinet with doors who really cares right?

I'd rather go a bit cheaper on the interior wood so that the outside can be the nicer 3/4 inch Oak plywood ill require to be able to attach cabinet doors properly and not break the bank. That alone will require two 4x8 sheets and be about $100... The 1x8 Oak boards were 31 dollars each and i'd need 3 just to frame the interior of the cabinets! I think ill pass.

I decided to put the two locking casters on the back wheels, im not 100% sure this was the right choice but i think it is. The front will have a shroud around the bottom nearly to the floor so i dont think i can realistically lock them...atleast from the back i can hope to reach around the backside and lock them and slide the entire thing back in inch or so against the wall with the wheels locked....

Any experience on that?

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Slow day, spent a lot of time borrowing a friends truck, going to HDepot, buying the 1/4th inch oak plywood and getting him his truck back...got the two sides cut out, realized that the Skilsaw i borrowed really cuts about 1/8th of an inch right from where the laser is go figure...doesnt really matter anyways because there will be 2x8's put at one end so you wont even see that its a tad short.

The most annoying thing about the project so far is the inconsistency in wood size, you basically can do zero planning until you have the wood. I dont know why i didnt do this to begin with, my 2x8's for framing the side and front are really 7.5", and my 1x8's are 7.25" which is actually fine as i dont mind the shelves being a bit inset so they dont bang into the door.

The biggest problem with this is that i assumed 8" spacing on the front to get everything flush so i can mount my 3/4ths inch Oak on the outside. Now everything is about 1/2" off so im going to shim the front beams with some 1/2" plywood, easy to fix just a pain in the ass.

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Day 5 - Good day, got some more framing done. I realized i needed some more support lengthwise so cut some beams to support it better. Then at the end of the night realized i still need more, because my 1/4th inch plywood bows too much in the middle i need another point to nail it down. I should have gone with 1/2" for the inside but i already have $50 in 1/4" inch oak plywood so im going to use it!

Also went to HD and bought some more stuff i should have had to begin with like a giant ruler and level, and also bought a Empire cutting guide for the Skilsaw...realize i could have made my own but I would have then had an 8 foot guide i dont know where i'd put it. This ones nice because it splits into 4 foot sections.

Keezer-Day5.jpg
 
I like the design. I feel your pain with the screws stripping out. The two best tools that have eliminated that for me is the Impact driver and the star bit screws. Once I got the impact drill I realized I could use all the other type screw and rarely I'll have one strip out.

I have a feeling you wont need the locks on the wheels unless your floor is really out of level. It is nice to know they are there just incase you do. The weight of the keezer should keep it from moving.

I like the look of the cheaper wood. The plywood in the original looks like the AC grade pine I use quite a bit.

The saw guide is a good purchase. It will help your accuracy. I'd recommend cutting on the back side of the plywood so you don't get a lot of tear out.

Looking forward to following your progress. Feel free to send me a PM if you need any help. Cheers.
 
I like the design. I feel your pain with the screws stripping out. The two best tools that have eliminated that for me is the Impact driver and the star bit screws. Once I got the impact drill I realized I could use all the other type screw and rarely I'll have one strip out.

I have a feeling you wont need the locks on the wheels unless your floor is really out of level. It is nice to know they are there just incase you do. The weight of the keezer should keep it from moving.

I like the look of the cheaper wood. The plywood in the original looks like the AC grade pine I use quite a bit.

The saw guide is a good purchase. It will help your accuracy. I'd recommend cutting on the back side of the plywood so you don't get a lot of tear out.

Looking forward to following your progress. Feel free to send me a PM if you need any help. Cheers.

Thanks, yea i dont think it will move but it was an only an extra $.50 per wheel for the locks with wheels so whatever.

Unlike the original, i think im going to stain the interior once i get it up, because im also planning on using Oak on the exterior i'd like to look at the interior oak with the stain and make sure that it looks right before i go spend $60 a sheet on 3/4ths Oak Plywood.

The original guy used Walnut he said, so i may start with that because we are looking for a darker piece.
 
Day 5 & 6

Day 5 was mostly drinking beer as its Friday night and that's the only proper thing to do, but before we left I bought 3 mini cans of stain to try out on some scrap we had. I think we've decided on the Dark Walnut, the Special Walnut is a bit too light, and the Jacobean looks similar to the Dark Walnut on the Oak, maybe a tad blacker but on the Pine that will be used for the shelves it looks really black and burnt almost. Ignore the horizontal lines across the wood, after the first 5 minute coat i decided i'd tape it off into 1/3rd sections so we would have 5, 10, and 15 minute stain soak color comparisons...turns out it made really no difference...the lines are from where the stain sucked up under the tape and puddled.

This is on Red oak plywood from Lowes. The lighting was pretty piss poor and they look a bit darker than they do with proper lighting but you get the idea.
From left to right: Jacobean, Dark Walnut, Special Walnut. Today when the SWMBO came with me inside, this other HDepot had stain samples out and we kinda liked the Red Mahogony, but after we stained our oak with it i think we still like the Dark Walnut.
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Day 6 had me fitting the sides and nailing them into place with the 18 gauge brad gun, this helped a lot with the bowing thankfully. The ends still bow slightly inwards but when i frame the cabinet with 2x8's ill be flexing it out to hold it straight. Had to recut the front, not sure how but i mismeasured, it left gaps maybe 1/4th of an inch too big to be covered by the 2x8's. Thankfully because i had to get two sheets i had extra to spare. We also dry fit the freezer again because i wanted to make sure that because my cuts using the skilsaw arent always consistent that i didnt make one side too high, thankfully it looks like when i buy some 1/2" sheet or whatever for the lid it should clear everything. One side is maybe 1/4th of an inch low on the inside but will be covered by a 2x8 anyways so it doesnt really matter. Tommorrow's goal is to get the three 2x8 frames cut and in place, once thats done i think start preparing the lid next week. After that comes the stress of cutting the front panels, since ill only have enough wood for one extra panel if i screw up i need to be extra diligent in where im cutting. Im not as worried about the outer cuts as long as their close because there will be molding anyways, but the inner plunge cuts can ruin it if their too big. I may purposefully make the inner holes a tad small and clean them up with a router using my new guide.
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Really like your thread. Ill be following and hopefully recreating before I deploy.

Thanks

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Home Brew mobile app
 
Day 7 - Didnt get much done, too many errands all day by the time we got home at 6pm i was exhausted.
So i decided to stain one side of the inside with the Dark Walnut to make sure thats what we wanted, and it does look good so we're going with it.
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do you have any friends with woodworking tools? If so, i'd recommend getting some of the oak from HD, and ripping it down to whatever thickness you want, but using it to glue onto the edges of your 3/4" ply. Gives it a better look at the edge then the ragged plywood, or just putting corner mold on it. Just my .02.

When I see these projects, I always wished I lived closer to lend a helping hand. ;)

What kind of casters do you have on this? All that dimensional lumber is going to be extremely heavy, not to mention once you get it all loaded down with the additional booze and wine. Don't want to see the wheels you buy at HD fail on you. Then again, I usually go "overkill" to not have any headaches down the road.

All i can add with the dimensional lumber, make sure you look every piece up and down when you pick it out. grab one end and put your nose right at the end and look out of one eye down the board. You "can" cut around a bit of a bow (virtually impossible to find straight dimensional lumber at lowes or HD), but you are screwed if you have any twist in the board.

Lastly, going on that pic in the initial post, your "end goal", that long shelf in the front. You can make the shelf itself out of the oak ply. Again, get some of that oak stock they sell there 1x1 or 1x2 should be fine (and again that "1" is really 3/4"). Stand it up on the long grain and glue the top of the long grain edge (skinny edge) to the bottom edge of the plywood face. Makes an "L". You can also buy some oak banding that has a glue backing to hide the nasty plywood edge. Anyway, gluing the piece of oak stock to that long of a shelf stiffens it so it can handle the weight of all the liquor bottles. Otherwise it'll bow over time. Again, if you have a friend that has woodworking tools, notably a table saw and a dado blade, you can cut a 3/4" rabbit a 1/2" deep on the inside face of the oak stock. Then let the rabbit sit in front of the plywood edge (negating the need for the glue on oak banding), while still giving you the stiffening that you'll need in the shelf.
 
I know one who has some basic woodworking skills yes, i will likely be doing some type of corner molding just like the original did to hide the edges.

I went with 3" casters that are rated at 170lbs each..that gives me nearly 700lbs...the freezer is 90, all the full kegs + gas will be another 200ish...so realistically i have 350+lbs of wiggle room in wood and i am not sure if it will hit that or not... Even as it is now i can easily pick it up one end with one arm....im not sure what that says in regards to the weight overall though :) But i do still have a lot of the heavier bits like the 3/4th inch plywood and top to add... If i get near the end and it looks like its going to be a problem there is space for extra wheels or moving to 4" wheels. The problem will be not really knowing exactly how heavy it is since i cant just roll it on a scale...

Im not really sure what im going to do with the long shelf, my initial plan was to use dimensional 1x7's for all of the shelves. Depending on how they look stained i may veneer them or glue on some of the extra 1/4th ply on top, since the front panel "blocks" the front of the shelf i think this will work and im not enough of a perfectionist to care about the bottom side of the shelf you will never see.

I have zero wood working skills really, just an engineer with a dream ;) Overall im happy with the progress so far, im trying to be as meticulous with wood and measuring as possible but on some parts it just doesnt matter if my cut was 1/4" short or slightly angled because its getting covered anyways. Do you think a 1x7 of dimensional lumber will bow that long? It will be somewhere around 30-36" im guessing. I looked at the oak stock, and may go that route if necessary but it was extremely expensive as well. If i remember correctly a 1x8x8' was $36 or something, but we shall see. If i can just fake it with some of the extra 1/4th ply i have glued onto a cheap $6 1x8 then ill do that :D
 
Well, if you go that route with the dimensional lumber, you're locked into the shelf being at that height. You should have extra 3/4" ply leftover if you bought two sheets for this. You can easily make it so that you can adjust the shelf using shelf pins. It's really as easy as taking a piece of scrap stock, drawing a line every 1 to 2" across the face of the stock, drilling a hole. Then stand that up on the inside faces of your cubbies, and use it as a guide as to where to drill your hole for your shelf pins. Makes it repeatable, which is what you need.

Regarding the 1x7 stock bowing or not, really depends on what you're putting in there, stock and booze wise. I have a cabinet that I had to put a stiffner into the stock shelf, because I have collected too much scotch (is there really such a thing), that the shelf sags. The stock shelf is the mdf with a maple veneer on it to match the cabiet. Solid piece of maple? Maybe not sag as much with the amount of weight on it, but would still sag a bit. Piece of pine? You betcha. The strength in the grain is on the edge, not on the face.

Looking at that initial image, I think the way I would have gone about the cubbies and outside facade would have been to build boxes for the cubbies. Then take the 3/4" ply and cut square holes with a jig saw and straight edge that the boxes would mate up to. Some pocket screws on the backside would secure it all together. Pretty easy/straight forward construction with minimal tools (really just a jig saw with a good blade and a hand drill with some larger diameter drill bits to get the jig saw blade started). Would give a nice clean look to it. And again, go with the shelf pin approach for the shelves. Never know how/if your needs will change and you would want to be able to move the shelf around to fit a different bottle etc in the future. The boxes are as easy as ripping to depth the sides, top and bottom. Then cut a piece of 1/4" plywood that is the area of the box, and tack it all together. Not hard, but would take a table saw at that point.

The way I would look at this is, you're going to have time/money invested into it. Try to "future proof" it as much as you can where you can. You're not going to make another one anytime soon, right? If you never move the shelf, then you planned right. But if you can't move the shelf and want to, you'll wish you had been able to I guess is all I'm getting at.

And I'm not saying this to say you don't have a good thing going here. Not my intention at all. Just trying to think of an easy way to construct it, with some strength, that may help down the road.
 
You must have been inside my head, your cubbies is basically what im doing.

He sort of did that with the left and right side if you look at his build, because he was just using 1/2" plywood he didnt do anything on the front.

But because i am having to hang 3/4" plywood for cabinet doors i am building an upside down U box out of 2x8 across the front to have more support to glue the front facade too. In addition to the two 2x8 smaller boxes on the left and right side. Instead of using the 3/4ths though i may just cover the cubby sides in 1/4" oak and drill like you mentioned. It will make cutting the inner hole a lot more straight forward just making one big hole rather than two smaller ones.

The front and left/right sides were built in such a way that i can fit the 7.5" 2x8's to build the cubby boxes and they should line up on the outside where the exterior will be put on.
 
I wish i was closer! You can make doors that will be less weight than the 3/4", and look nicer too probably. Unless you're getting them made of solid 3/4" stock. That's different. You could use 3/4" stock again, the 1x2 would be ok, 1x3 probably better. Make what is called a half lap joint for the corners. Then cut a dado groove down the middle inside edges of the four pieces (think pickture frame) that would accept some of your 1/4" plywood. Would give you your door, at a significant weight savings, and look nice as well. You would have enough stock in the outside "frame" to put in some of those european hidden hinges, or use normal hinges if you wanted to.
 
Oh, no i dont mean for the cabinet doors.

I mean the original used 1/2" plywood because he had no doors, but from what i can tell standard cabinet door hinges require 3/4th wood to be able to screw into. Is that wrong and i can get away with smaller wood on the exterior?

I was planning on doing overlay cabinet doors from a local cabinet shop to custom make them to whatever size i end up needing.

Or i suppose if I am building a cubby that i can attach the hinge to the side of the cubby..? Now that i look more closely at the various hinges it seems that would work if i lined the cubbies with 1x8's...hmmm dont know why i got it stuck in my head i needed 3/4" plywood on the outside to hinge off of..if i can get away with 1/2" or even 1/4" ply(maybe to thin and will bow?) Oak plywood on the outside instead of 3/4" i can cut the cost and weight by quite a bit i bet and end up with a better product..

As for weight, now im a bit more concerned after weighing these 2x8's i was going to use for the cubby framing.

Their each 27# each and im going to need three. That add's a lot of extra weight, im wondering if i can get by with just using 1x8's instead....

So far im not that worried, i weighted a 2x4x8 and it came out at a dead even 10#, knowing ive only bought 5-6 of them i should be fine so far.
 
Well crap, turns out HD and Lowes nearby dont stock Oak in 1/2, they have 1/4 oak and 3/4 oak, and 1/2 birch......hmmmmm...
1/2" Oak on their online store only comes in 4x4 sheets too which isnt big enough for my front...I just dont know if 1/4" would be sturdy enough...but the 3/4ths seems like overkill and a lot of extra weight...

Do you think its worth the effort to go that route DFess? You seem to have the most experience, i can start searching the other lumber yards i am sure someone has to stock 1/2" oak plywood.
 
you aren't gonig to find 1/2" oak ply unless you go to a lumber yard, and you're not going to like the price point either. If you build a sturdy enough frame for the outside (think wire frame in a solidworks file) the 1/4" should be fine.
 
Hmm ok, i guess now that i think about it most of the exterior sheets are going to be cut out anyways for the cubby's, only the trim on the outside that is going to be nailed to the cubby's anyways will be there anyways which should prevent it from bowing. But i also i am not 100% sure on what you mean by constructing a wireframe..im familiar with the term, maybe not in how it relates in Solidworks though.

Originally i was looking at these types of hinges which is why i was thinking 3/4ths on the outside.
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but then i realized after talking to you yesterday i can realistically do these
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Day 8 - Bought my own Circular saw, tired of using the Skilsaw i used that no matter what i did never seemed to cut where i wanted or straight. New Makita is way better already. Cut the bottom panels and got them nailed on. Im a bit conflicted on the interior side panels being slightly short on the front. On one hand, they are going to be making the interior walls of the wine boxes, and will have a 1x8 on the outer side..realistically even if that 1x8 wasnt there and it was just a 1/2" gap, i dont think you could look in the tiny wine hole and actually see it up against the wall anyways.
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Finally ill get around to building the cabinet structure today, the hope is that once the 1x8's are screwed in place it will be able to keep the remaining front bit that sticks out straighter and not bowed in the middle. You can see the front area that is unsupported bows slightly, its only about 1/8" so i have no real fears that once i build the 1x8 cabinet frame and nail the plywood sheet to the more straight 1x8 it will straighten out more.
 
Cut the cabinet wood for the left side, and realized that the left side is bowing out way too much. So much that it pulled the brads out in the middle...so rather than just slamming more nails into it i cut the last bit thats big enough of my plywood sheet and made a new left side thats way better. Then stained everything on the inside thats visible because from what i gathered doing research online if you glue before staining your more likely to get glue onto the surface around the joint and stain will no longer soak into that area, leaving a horrible mess. So i stained and will glue the left side on tommorrow. Tomorrow morning before work i'll put the first coat of the semi gloss poly on it so i can the 2nd coat on at lunch. Then hopefully by the time i get home its dry enough to work with. Sorry for the bad image my cameras flash decided to go super saiyan apparently.

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you have to tape off where you are going to glue though. You don't want stain getting onto the surface that is going to be glued up, as the glue won't set. The oil in the stain prevents the glue from grabbing hold.
 
Well i was going to screw in from the inside anyways as well as glue, so if the gluing doesnt end up working that's alright
 
Another Friday, another night drinking and not doing much.

Got the wood cut for the right side cabinet.

With the 1" overhang on the front i have ill have 12" up front for wine bottles(i measured a few we have and they were like 10-11" but i know some whites are longer so it gives some wiggle room), and gives us just under 18" usable space in the back. I'll probably do what Dfess mentioned and drill peg holes for moveable shelves, im guessing 3 will fit as its about 30" high, including the bottom gives us 4 shelves.

I was able to successfully screw the cabinet cubby in from the backside with a few half inch screws so no glue was needed and its not going anywhere and should give a nice study base for me to hang the outer 1/4" plywood on.
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Looking at the picture i realized my workspace is getting pretty dirty and cluttered, definately need to clean up a bit tommorrow :)
We looked at a bunch of various wood flooring samples at HDepot to get an idea of what we want the inset to be...they actually have some pergo floors that look like slate and other various rock...may be nice to get the look without the crazy additional weight....not sure what we plan to do on that yet.
 
Day 11 - Got the wine shelves set, thankfully SWMBO was around and able to help me hold them in place while i screwed them in from the side. I also put glue on the end and shot some finishing brads in. I didnt want to use screws from the inside of the cabinet if i didnt need to since it will be visible. They seem very sturdy considering they are held in with two screws, 2 nails and some glue. A bit of glue got on the joints but i dont care, this entire area will be stained and invisible unless you took a flashlight and shined it into the wine holes, so if the stain doesnt take up well in the back around the joints i wont care

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Hope to duplicate this on the right side tommorrow and then see how far i can get to building the cabinet box for the front compartment.
 
So here's a trick if your wife isn't around to help you out. Cut two pieces of scrap to the height dimension you want to use. Lay one on each face that the shelf will be screwed to, lay your shelf over it and tack it in. Pretty simple, and repeatable. Keep the scrap so that when you put the outside skin on, the shelf doesn't sag at all when you tack them in. Start at the bottom and work your way up your shelves.
 
Another day, and i think im more or less complete with the interior, now i can work on getting the exterior sheet cut then all thats left is the top and some stain! The end is finally in sight, granted its still probably another 5-7 days of work but i think im past the half way point by now...we'll see how wrong i am.

Only thing i need to rectify is the front, the top of the front box measures 42 1/8" or so, and the bottom around 42 3/8" or so. Only issue is due to my decision to stack the interior all the way to the 2x4's, then put the flat sheets up against them that they(the left and right interior sheets) are now sandwiched in between and i have no wiggle room to pull the interior box they are attached too inward, because sadly most lumber from HD/Lowes isnt perfectly flat...i chose the ones that looked good to the naked eye but its hard to tell until you chop it up and put it together. In all honesty i am not sure how to go about fixing it quite yet, but ill need to come up with a solution so my cabinet doors are not mounted at a slight angle. One solution is to just not screw the box in on the right side(the seemingly problem side), and have a small 1/4" gap between the interior 1x8 and the interior plywood sheet for a bit towards the bottom, its the act of screwing in the 1x8 to the interior sheet thats pulling it outward since the sheet has no wiggle room, in fact that may be the solution because it will all be covered by the exterior anyways, i suppose in doing so I may lose a 1/4" on the inside of some of the wine storage but i dont really care about that as they are oversized @ 6x6x12"ish as is...Other than that all the wine spots are nice and solid with screws, nails and some glue holding them all suspended. Only had one stray brad shoot upward at a shallow angle a bit and bust through the top of one of the wine shelves, not going to bother with it just hammer it down a bit to keep it out of the way...again its hidden at the back of the pitch black wine box anyways. I'm not going for any construction awards here for the interior, the interior will be fully functional even with its minor unseen defects, the exterior is where i will not allow any screw ups even if it means i need to buy another $25 of wood.

Im only using screws on sides that will not be visible, anywhere that will be visible on the interior i am using 18 gauge brads, and they seem to be working fairly well so far. The same will happen for the exterior, only 18 gauge brads will be used to hang the 3 exterior sheets, although i reckon ill need a few more than i used to hang the interior. And i will be extra cognizant of getting the flattest sheet of the 1/4" plywood i can.

Keezer-Day12.jpg
 
Not much to report the last few days. Spent one day getting the wood for the exterior and top, another night or two fixing some measurement mistakes and redoing a bunch on both sides to make them even, not sure why i didnt do it this way in the first place but w/e now its fixed.

Also we're still going through stain woes, we like the dark walnut but want it a bit darker, and multiple coats isnt getting us where we want since Oak plywood apparently stains lighter than regular oak. We really want an 'espresso" style finish to match the rest of our interior so i got some espresso stain from Varathane but even after two coats (one 5min, one 15 min) it is no where near as dark as the sample...gonna keep soaking it and hope to get it there! I have probably bought tiny jars for like 6-7 different stain types at this point!

The dark walnut looks dark until you have a light on, then it turns the lighter brown in the above picture from 1/19 when the flash went off. Im not too worried about the interior, it can be lighter but depending on what stain we use i may just put a few coats of the new color on the interior to darken it up.
 
Got an old school hardware store nearby?
See if they have any "stove black", made for cast iron stoves, tint a few samples of stain, and try it on some scraps.
Black ink will work as well.
Then put your topcoat / sealer over that.
I'm guessin' you're going to use poly or the like?
 
Life and other planned activities as well as general laziness and needing to plan better have slowed everything down.

I have come to the conclusion that i will probably divide the front into two separate cabinets. I am going to need two doors as it is with some type of center stile. This actually works out better in the end, because having two cabinets with adjustable shelves means we have more versatility in the shelves as we can mismatch the locations to better fit the infinite possibilities of glass sizes we seem to have acquired.

The original plan was to have one big 42" shelf, but ive started to realize doing research that pretty much all cabinets > 36" use center styles to support the cabinet from sagging, and im not entirely sure that a giant 42" shelf even if made out of oak when fully loaded wouldnt sag. I think it works better in the original because its only a ~5cuFt freezer(guesstimate based on holding 3 kegs), so the front is slightly shorter than my 7.1cuFt freezer which makes the shelf a bit long.

I tested a 1x8 with two peices of 1/4" oak plywood on either side and the shelf plugs don't touch, so this is good news.
We also decided to start with a 5" lip on the top of the front cabinet, the original didn't have to worry about this because he didnt have doors, but having doors as high as he mounted his cabinet is not really feasible and would look ridiculous. I *could* just lower the center cabinet top down 5 inches, but why bother, we may as well maintain that hidden few inches behind the front panel for larger objects, we can always stick really tall objects inward and up behind the front overhang.

I made a sketchup for the basic idea, without the wine holes drilled obviously...the brown part is the main slab used for the top, since ill probably also use 1x3's to make the lip and downward trim like the original we'll use some type of 3/4" wood flooring to fill in the center of the lid.
Bar-Keezer.png


For those with experience putting keezers on carpet, how much clearance is realistic for the bottom shroud? I planned to leave 2" from the ground, more than enough to cover everything up using 3" wheels, i assumed after it was all loaded and on carpet it'd probably drop down 1/2" to 1" and leave enough room to actually be able to roll it around without snagging the outer shroud on the carpet.
 
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