Another Keezer build... Jester Rip-off

Hey All!

I finally started construction on my Keezer build. I scored a Kenmore 14.8 cuft chest freezer for $150 on craigslist. I was inspired by Jester's awesome build and the many replica's that followed. Here's the thread on Jester's build that I'm using for reference.

I'm still waiting for my temp controller to put my kegs in but by a rough guess it should hold at least 7 kegs on the floor.





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So far I've made the dolly out of a 19/32" sheet of plywood and some 2x6's. The plywood is 1" wider than the freezer to allow for some room. The 2x6's frame the plywood. The casters are screwed in at the corners.



Lowes had some pretty nice red oak boards that I'm probably going to use to trim out the rest of the keezer. I'm hoping It'll look nice stained a redish tone with maybe some dark marble or granite inlays.

More to come!

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Whutever said:

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Me2

I had to buy 2 oak boards from Lowes last week and I was kinda shocked by the price. If you arent in a rush, you might try shopping that around a bit.

Yeah I've been looking around at a couple of different places. I just thought the Lowes boards were nice since they were well milled and pretty much ready to stain. It's probably why they're more pricey. I'm in the process of planning the top. It's probably going to have a dark granite inlay with a 4" wood trim surround and overhang. I still need to order the taps and shanks. Farmhouse Brewing supply had a decent deal on perlick 525s and stainless shanks. I think I priced out a whole assembly for like $55 each.

Count me in with a subscription!

Looking to do one of my own in the semi-near future!

Ordered the johnson digital controller and perlick taps, shank, and tail pieces earlier this week. I'm hoping to start roughing out the lid this weekend. I'll post up a pic of my sketchup design when I get a chance. The beverage facotry had a 36" driptray I'll probably go for as well.

It's starting to come together.

Cant wait to see the finished product..

Pick your wood and finish carefully - it's the one place I skimped, and it's the one thing I'd change if I could!

Generally Lowes and Home Depot have lower quality wood than independent lumber yards that cater to woodworkers. Make sure the grain is clear and the boards are straight. If you can find a local yard that takes pride in the wood they produce, you'd be surprised at how crappy the stuff at the box stores looks.

You can also call some local cabinet makers. I have been able to buy better looking material for a lower price. - Dwain

I did talk to another local specialty lumber mill. They said they could plane and rip the boards for me while I wait. I'm still liking the red oak with a cherry stain.

something like this:



for the tile inlay I'm thinking something dark like this:



Or maybe go a little lighter like this



I'll probably end up going to one of the big box stores and comparing a stained wood sample to a bunch of tile before I start doing the inlay.

Opinions?

Took the advise of everyone and went to a local lumber dealer. I got 14bf of red oak to start the lid trim work. Some of it will likely make it into the apron, but it was a decent amount to start work. I'll pick up the plywood and firring strips that'll be back underlying structure from Homedepot probably tomorrow.

I am starting this project as soon as craigslist is good to me, so I also subscribed.

Are you going with an Irish Coffin? If so, what length shanks are you running?

Yes it'll have a coffin box on top that will hopefully be cooled by a fan drawing air from the bottom. I went with 4 1/8" shanks since they will be going through 2" of wood (2 5/8 useable length). I believe Jester recommended using 5" shanks to make tubing changes easier, but he used 4" and they worked just fine.

Made some progress and got the lid base plywood and the surrounding trim done. I ended up making a cut-out for the handle on the freezer lid. I will be back filling this with some of the pink insulation foam to support the corners of the tile. On top is a test piece of the chestnut red minwax stain. I think I'm going to need to pre-treat the wood before staining and find a more red stain for the desired results. Thought it was weird that the Homedepot I went to didn't have Cabot wood stains, must be a purchasing issue.

I had to send back my temp controller cause it didn't supply power to the freezer. I triple checked both the wiring (it came pre-wired) and the jumper settings and couldn't get it to work. I even tested it with just a lamp connected to the output. Luckily they're picking up the old one and sending out a new one this week. I have my drip tray coming from the same place so I'm guessing everything will come all at once. Once I get the tile I'm going to use I should be able to finish out the coffin box on top.

Looks great so far! From the picture, that lumber looks great. I do envy you guys in the more Southern states - you have access to much better lumber yards.

Nice work so far....and great choices in your materials. It's going to be awesome! Keep up the good work.

Well I'm stuck at the moment trying to get the right color from the stains I'm testing. Most of them are coming out a lot lighter than I thought. Can anyone recommend a dark red type stain for red oak that would look like the sample posted above? I'm going to try some rougher sanding and a 3rd coat to see what I get.

In other news the faucets, and shanks are coming today. The new temp controller should be here on Friday. Yay Presents!

mtbiker278 said:

Well I'm stuck at the moment trying to get the right color from the stains I'm testing.

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Im worried about the same thing on my most recent project...tried to re-use as much of the old wood as possible but had to buy two new boards. Asked a buddy to see what he could come up with because 1 he has a lot more experience than me and 2 he has a lot of stains and dyes already on-hand without buying anything... I will keep my fingers crossed for you.

Looking good so far.

Very curious to see where this ends up.

The suggestion about getting wood from a devoted lumberyard was a great one. I wouldn't have even thought about going somewhere else for lumber as I don't do nearly enough wood work to have thought of that.

I was able to get the coffin box assembled yesterday. I just need to add the surrounding trim pieces. I finally determined what stain I'm going to use. I'm going with Minwax's Bombay Mahogany polyshade 1-step. I'm sure the wood working purist will be up in arms about this but I like the color. Here's an example from another bar build.



I might dilute the color a tad or mix it with a lighter color to have not come out so dark. I think that person might have laid it on a tad heavy.

I've also picked out my tile. It's Victorian Brown from HomeDepot:



I'm thinking the red highlights will look good with the red toned stain.

Here's a couple pictures of where I am now. I need to head back to the lumber mill and get some more red oak. I'm still waiting on the drip tray. Once I have that I can work on cutting out the recess for it. During the week I be sanding and prepping for the stain. I'll probably also work on filling out the coffin with insulation and cutting the holes in the lid for the plumbing. I'm hoping to have this thing operational in a couple of weeks at most.

Y

In for finished pics, should look great.

Is that dalmore?

Lovin it so far... go man go!!!

Really liking the stone so far. Good work so far!!

Looking good, fine woodworking skills!

Hey everyone!! It's been a while since I've last updated this. Since my last post I've received and cut the tile, finished the trim pieces, and finally stained and polycoated. I still need to get the plumbing worked out but right now 3 of the 5 taps are operational. Feedback welcome!

Mocking up the tile.





All the tile cut and in place. Took about 30min to cut all the pieces. Hard to see but there are little 1" strips underneath the backsplash to help move the drip tray forward. 1" is probably the smallest width you could cut on a tile wet saw comfortable and with clean edges.



First attempt with the Polyshades ended in disaster. When applying the second coat it became very uneven and blothcy. I ended up stripping the whole thing and starting fresh with Cabot Red Mahogany stain, and Minwax Gloss Polyurethane.



And here's the finished lid. No lights yet, and I might not put any on. I'm going to get the plumbing sorted out before I start working on the skirt. Just for anyone else looking to do a similar project I highly recommend using a table saw. It can be done with a miter box and circular saw (used those for the underlying plywood and firring strips) but trim pieces definitely need to be done on a table saw if you have access to one.



I wish I had a better camera (using my Evo) but it has a warm glow to it. What's really nice is it's tall enough to be able to pull bar stools up to it if you wanted. One other thing to note is the lid is pretty darn heavy. The granite tile alone is probably 45-50lbs. Add in the plywood and oak and we're probably talking 100lbs. I'm not really concerned about the hinges cause it's not holding the whole thing up when the top is open (I have to use a prop). So far I'm happy with the results!

Looking great!

nice work! subscribed.

What size drip tray is that and where did you get it?

It's a 36in driptray that I got from the beverage factory. That was the only place I could find one that length. Price was decent enough when you compare to other stainless driptrays.

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Looks fantastic! Are you going to skirt or build a cabinet around the actual freezer unit or leave as it? Regarless, it's a beaut!

Definitely going to build a skirt eventually. However I'm going to focus on brewing some more beer and getting the plumbing sorted out. I still need to rig up some sort of circulation fan for both the coffin and inside the freezer. With any luck I will have the keezer finished and filled with beer before thanksgiving.

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I used two 4" inductor fans, one that pulls cold air from the freezer up into the coffin and one that exhausts air out of the coffin and back down into the freezer. There is a section in my keezer build thread that shows how I did it. They work very well and I am able to keep a very consistent coffin temperature and at the same time, keep air circulating in the freezer as well. I used a Love TSS2 controller, which is a dual input, dual output temperature controller. I have one probe in the freezer, which controls power to a plug that the freezer compressor is plugged into. The other probe is in the coffin and controls power to a plug that the 2 inductor fans (which are wired together into an extension cord) are plugged into. I try to keep a 5 degree differential between the freezer compartment and the coffin, so channel 1 (the freezer) is set to 38 degrees and channel 2 (the coffin) is set to 43 degrees. Even at the low temperature differential, I was still having some foaming issues, as my kegging kit was purchased from kegconnection and their kits come with 5' beer lines. The 5' lines did not offer enough resistance in the system for the 11 psi that I keep my kegs under for carbing and serving. I simply swapped them out for 10' beer lines and have not had any foaming issues since.

Sounds like an awesome set-up. I'm going low tech on mine. I have a Johnson Digital controller hooked up for temperature control. My plan is to have it the output plugged into a power strip. The freezer, coffin fan, freezer fan, and two circulation fans that blow air around the freezer will all be plugged into the power strip using wall-wort adapters for the computer fans. The current draw should be well within the limits of controller since the computer fans don't really pull much. If not I'll just rig up another power strip that'll plug in separately. Everything should tuck in nicely in the back of the coffin behind the insulation.

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hey mtbiker, I am in the process of nearly an identical build. Did you secure the tiles with anything or just place them in like jester did?

Mine are just sitting on top with nothing adhering them to the lid. I liked Jester's idea of being able to replace them if needed. Really the front 4 tiles are the only ones that could potentially lift up. At 6lbs a piece I don't see them flying off any time soon. The only way that would happen is if the lid was tilted way back, at which point I'm pretty sure the whole Keezer would fall over unless it was completely filled.

I think Hoppopotomus actually adhered and sealed his tiles to his Keezer. Check out his build for some ideas.

Yup...I did. I set the tile in mortar over cement board (also mortared down), grouted, and then sealed in a high quality, gloss stone sealer. I basically did the same tile application that I would use for applying floor tile over a plywood subfloor in my home. Maybe a bit of overkill, but it's not going anywhere. IMO...there is more of a chance of bad things happening with unsecured tile, but I suppose if your not moving the unit much, it's not a huge issue. Good luck with your build mtmeyer32!