Going about things backwards, at least from a ball lock/pin lock perspective.

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thatfatbastard

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Howdy y'all,

I recently came in to the possession of 5 corny kegs. Three of them are ball lock and the other two are pin lock, they also came with the hardware to convert the pin locks to ball lock. "Awesome", you say, "Just convert them so you only have one style." Not so fast. I will be receiving more kegs soon, only these will all be pin lock. I'm not quite sure how many I will be getting, but I'm figuring it will be at least 5 more.

Now my question. I know that there are kits available to convert pin locks to ball locks, however is the reverse true? I haven't seen any out there.

I currently have one of the small dorm style kegerators with a Sankey tap. I know that you can also adapt those so that you can have the Sankey and a pin lock or ball lock tap at the same time (for example: one of these, though not necessarily that one - that was just from a quick Google search ). I am also planning on building a keezer so that I can have multiple brews on tap, would it just be better to reserve the ball locks for the kegerator and the pin locks for the keezer?

What are your thoughts?
 
Please don't cannibalize those ball locks, they are becoming harder to find. Just sell them on Craislist and buy some pin locks. the Ball locks usually go for more than the pinlocks these days. You could probably find some one who would trade you straight up.
 
Please don't cannibalize those ball locks, they are becoming harder to find.

My understanding is that the conversion just requires changing the posts. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Further, if I don't dispose of the ball lock posts then no harm, no foul. Right? I'm not talking about drilling holes in them or anything, I still want them to hold beer at pressure.

An additional further, outside of the kegs that have been scrapped there are still just as many now as there have always been, it's just that more are squirreled away by folks that either "need" 50 kegs or there are more home brewers now than there were in the past so that the remaining kegs are spread over a larger community.

Supply and demand determine the final outcome of course and new kegs are being produced, they are just more expensive. I've seen pictures of warehouses full of used kegs, whether they are ball lock or pin lock really doesn't matter.

However, as far as I am concerned, a 5 gallon keg is a 5 gallon keg and I just want something to hold my beer and dispense it when I pull my tap handle.
 
I was under the impression that many of the kegs were scraped and many more were sent to Asia to be used to serve soda as they were intended.

Either way I know that ball locks have more value in the homebrew market. You would have to spend at least $15 (each keg) for the new posts to convert them. Why not sell them for $40 locally and buy some pin locks for $25-30 and save $ rather than spend $.

Edit: My plea to not convert them was not because I thought they would be harmed, I just thought it was imprudent. Why spent $ to convert a more desirable product into a less desirable one.
 
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