Yet another Keezer!

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brodacious

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2012
Messages
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Location
Adirondaks
Wanted to build a keezer and browsed the countless keezer threads. Big props to all those who came before me for posting theirs and helping/inspiring me.
Special props to Smarch0, as I basically completely ripped his design off!
This ended up costing me way more than I anticipated, but over all I love the thing. The only original part was using Envirotex poured epoxy for the surface with some grains set in. I should have spent more time on the grain design, but ah well. so, some pics:

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Wishing I had a pickup truck, SWMBO was kind enough to drive me back from the depot.
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Used a dark stain to match the coffee+end tables in the living room. Went with 3 Perlicks and 1 stout faucet.
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LED's with plastic I used frosting spray on:
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SWMBO getting some tile on:
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My very hi-tech tool for punching holes in the 1" styrofoam for the draft lines and gas lines.
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Instead of drilling holes to go to the coffin portion, I just dremmled a large square hole in the top and lined it up nice with more styrofoam. Hoping it doesn't vary in temp too badly. I left the light wires from the lid incase I need to rig up a fan later.
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awesome build, and i love the grains and hops on the lid!
did you do anything special when applying the epoxy to keep it from sloshing everything around?
 
Freezer I got off Craigslist for $107 bucks.
Its a GE 7.1 Cubic Feet. It only fits 4 corny's on the floor, and a case of beer or two on the hump.

I used Envirotex lite for the top. I ran a few test runs about the size of a coaster to get a process down as I couldn't find much on putting things like grains in the stuff.

This was the process:
1- Poured ~26oz on the surface (32oz minus what the test runs were)
2- Sprinkle grain/set hops on surface of epoxy and pat down gently with the bottom of a ****ty pint glass
3- let cure overnight
4- Vac up the loose grains
5- pour 32oz over grains then Set some more hops and fill in some more grains
6- wait ~10 mins and hit with torch (should have come back in another 10 mins to do again, there were some minor bubbles around some of the hops)
7- let cure overnight
9- Pour 64oz and spread around
10- let cure over the weekend.

I used SWMBO's 5lbs weights to hold the drip tray in place during the first pour. It was stuck solid after that.
 
Thanks for the tips. I'm going to be doing this when I start my build. Yours looks awesome. I was originally going to epoxy over bottle tops until I saw yours.

How much did the epoxy cost to cover your build?

I'm trying to figure out costs and this seems like it can get costly to coat.
 
If the tower is well insulated I don't think you will have any "wild" temp variations especially since cold air sinks and that's why on some kegerator builds you see people installing fans in them to force the cold air up into the tower. I think you will be fine.

And I agree with everyone else here, that top looks incredible! Nice idea with the hops and the grains!
 
Dave,

I way over paid since I bought it in multiple small kits. I used about a gallon and ended up paying nearly $200 bucks. I just saw this:
www.amazon.com/Environmental-Tech-E...qid=1369590214&sr=8-2&keywords=envirotex+lite
And feel like a dummy but it was an experiment ...

I was going to go caps also but figured the grain would look way less college dorm. The most expensive part by far was the taps and co2 setup. The wood etc is harder to estimate. Check local lumber yards the wood is usually cheaper for the finishing wood and the rough wood is actually straight.
 
brodacious said:
Dave,

I way over paid since I bought it in multiple small kits. I used about a gallon and ended up paying nearly $200 bucks. I just saw this:
www.amazon.com/Environmental-Tech-EnviroTex-Pour-On-Finish/dp/B000VKZFLI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1369590214&sr=8-2&keywords=envirotex+lite
And feel like a dummy but it was an experiment ...

I was going to go caps also but figured the grain would look way less college dorm. The most expensive part by far was the taps and co2 setup. The wood etc is harder to estimate. Check local lumber yards the wood is usually cheaper for the finishing wood and the rough wood is actually straight.

Thanks for the heads up. Have you had any yellowing since doing this? Just trying to find the best epoxy. Lots out there from the research I've done. Is this amazon product the exact one you used or did you just find it cheaper?
 
Same exact product, envriotex lite.

Yeah I read for days about diffrent epoxy and UV blocking and yellowing from the sun. So far it hasn't yellowed... I plan on keeping it inside, so I'm not overly worried about yellowing...
 
What temp controller do you use?

I used the Love temp controller. And so far I'm happy with it.

For the volume of epoxy, there are some formulas you can use.
I did mine in stages, which was way more $$ but let me layer in steps so I knew how many more oz would give me my desired height more or less.

Just found this, looks like it might help you out.
http://eti-usa.com/Calculator.html
 
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