Keezer project coming along!!

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Arneba28

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The top panel is 3/4" x 10.25" x 37" pine, hand sanded to a nice smoother finish. I stained it Maple with the polyurethane/stain in one mix and will be spray coating it with a few layers to more clear polyurethane.
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I was so happy with the corner of the molding, I usually mess this stuff up so bad. I bought an extra 10ft of molding so that when I did mess up I didnt have to go to the store again. Figures I do it perfect on the first try this time.

So today I am drilling the hole in the lid and the top panel, then putting the final coats of polyurethane on. I received my Johnson control in the mail the other day and it works wonderfully. The freezer I picked up for 75$ out of the local classifieds. It cooled from 88dF to 32dF in 13 minutes and it stealth quite which is awsome. Obviously this is not Jesters Amazing Keezer (that right it got capitals!) But it will be able to be inside my new apt and not look like total crap when I move in a few months.

Now for a few things. I do not want to leave the top that enamel white, What do you guys think about adhesive vinyl tile? What about some black spray paint covered in polyurethane. I want something forgiving to moisture and any possible flexing of the top when someone leans on it or t gets lefted from a corner or something.
 
So I mostly finished it up tonight. Before I mounted the board I put a circle of that self expanding insulation can foam down then put the board on, it made a wonderful seal. I mounted the board and the tower tonight and tomorrow I am going to get some vinyl adhesive tile to put down around the board. There are a few marks and scratches on the surface that I do not want to show up. Plus the wood on white is just ugly.:mug:
 
So this is one of the dummy bolts. I could not mount the board on the back side because of where the rear wall of the freezer was. So I cut off the shafts on the rear bolts and used construction adhesive to mount them in the holes. First I filled the holes with spray insulation.
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This is the finished product before the tower mounting. The hole through the wood and top was a pain in the ass. The hole saw that I had was super crappy and it took a while to get through the lid. The front bolts in this picture are real the rears are dummys
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Everything went great with the tower, except that the hole in the wood and the lid was to small to fit my ball lock fitting through, So I chopped them off and reattached them once the lines where in. When I was mounting the wood for the final time I layed down a circle of spray insulation foam around the hole between the lid and the wood. This expanded great and will stop any air from escaping from the keezer without first going into the tower.
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The underside was a bit of a pain. I didnt want to take this liner out because the foam under it was crumbling easily. So the nuts and washers did not get as tight as they should of. But the tower bolts are anchoring both the tower and wood firmly in to the lid.
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Today I am going to get some vinyl tile to lay down on the top of the lid. Its pretty grimey and scratched up. Now I just have to decide what kind or style of tile I want to put down.
 
The tile sounds like a good idea. Are you going to try to do anything to tie it into the sides of the freezer? It might help to put some simple 90 degree edging around the edges so the vinyl tile isn't exposed (I'm thinking something like the plastic edging you put on corners where wallpaper ends). I'd be worried that the exposed vinyl would tend to pull up over time.
 
Yeah I was thinking about that, with self adhesive tile if it gets a little dirt under the edge then its game over, the whole tile starts to peel up. I was thinking about the plastic clear corner guards for drywall, and using clear epoxy to hold it down.
 
Well I went with the self adhesive tile and put it all around the top of the lid. I also, to protect the edges of the tile, put wooden 3/4" stained corner molding that matches the top. I tossed my keg of apfelwein in there and carbonated it and its great. Pictures tomorrow.
 
Hmmm.... i wonder if my parents will let me do this to there freezer at their house. Since my bro and i both moved out 5 or 6 years ago...they never use the chest freezer anymore. It would prove to be a useful tool when we all end up back at the parents house for holidays and stuff to at least dispense commercial kegs and whatnot.
 
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So the top is basically finished. Self Adhesive tile top, with wooden stained and polyurethaned corner molding.
Not sure really what I want to do with the front and sides.
 
I thought I took more pictures with more detail of the molding and tile but I dont think my camera was working quite right.
 
great glass! Where can I find one of those?

My parents have had these glasses for years and years. This is the last one left out of a set of 8 originals. I love this glass. You get incredible carbonation out of it even with lightly carbonated drinks with it. I have seen them at Kohls and a few online glass stores but they are pretty hard to come by.
 
Nice work!

When's the second tower going on??:rockin:


Not sure yet. I dont really have the ability to brew often enough that 4 taps would be needed at the moment. But I am thinking about a dedicated apfelwein tap so that puts me at only 3 real taps. but that is still pushing it.
 
Very nice work. Make a nice solution with not quite as much skill and work as Jester put in. You've provided hope for us "less than carpenters" out there.

I'm working on mine right now. I'm gonna show swmbo a pic of yours. She is currently wanting me to build jesters.

Don't know if this matters to you or not, but if I go this route I'll most likely pull those bolts into a counter-sunk hole, fill with wood filler and sand. Then you wouldn't need the 3 dummy's on the back and it would clean it up a bit.
 
Looks great man. That's a great way to do one and make it look great on an affordable/doable scale. There are some beautiful ones on this site that I couldnt do and dont have the cash for but I like yours just as much, maybe better!!!!! :mug:
 
Ok so the kegerator is moved over to the new house, and was loaded up with some apfelwein and my traditional irish stout(they went quick). Just a little bit of trim to do around the edge still but its about 90% finished.

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Now for project #2. we built this bar in the family room but we want to put a single tap out the top for partys. So that will be next

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I bought some of the tap handle inserts for making your own tower handles and this is what I came up with.

The first one is all different caps, tacked on to a cut down old french pastry pin.
The second one is from a puck from a small hockey team up in welland, Ont
 
I only have had one tile pop off and that one was slightly buckled when I put it on. They just shouldnt have any pressure on them at the joints. The one that has been popping off was the one that was covering the drain plug on the bottom. My cut was slightly off so to get it to fit I literally held the tile in place for 2 hours after I glued it. Guess I should of held on longer or just cut it right the first time

Remember kids, Measure twice, cut once!!
 
This is the other kegerator I finished a few months ago. Its a super old wine cooler from an Olive Garden. It was in the kitchen, so its pretty banged up. I sanded the whole thing down with 200 grit and removed all the spot rust and enamel.
The gasket around the door isnt great so im looking for a replacement but cant seem to find one at all. The cooler runs great when I put duct tape around the door so the cold air doesnt escape. Its very quite though which is nice.
Eventual plan is to have this up in the apartment. The SWMBO is ok with this smaller on upstairs in the dining room but wont put up with my original one up there.

So I started with sanding down the whole thing till it was down to a matte finish. Wiped it down and cleaned it out and did a test run on it with my thermostat controller. Once it gets down to 36dF it only kicks on every 65 minutes for 4 minutes. Not as efficient as my chest freezer kegerator but it will do.
The inside can fit 2 cornies and a 10# CO2 tank without a problem and you can see everything from outside which is kind of cool I think.
After sanding down the top I taped off all but an inch or so border and applied 3 coats of chaulk board paint to the top. Let it dry then drilled the hole or the tower. Its the tower off my first kegerator that is not in action right now and has been confined to the basement.
Outside of the kegerator, everywhere but the top was painted with a high gloss gray paint. I think I still want to put some back lighting into the roof of the kegerator just to highlight all the stuff inside
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Yes i know the pictures are horrible but sorry, I have an Iphone 3.
 
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