Chest Freezer Question

I currently have a converted Sanyo 4911 with a 2-tap tower. I've just purchased a 4-tap brass tower from ebay, and plan on building a new kegerator with a converted chest freezer. My plan was to build a wooden cover around it to mount the tower on. However, in order to get kegs in and out, I'm going to need to lift the entire assembly up. This brings me to my main question:

Does anyone know of any reasonably priced chest freezers with a split lid? (large enough to hold 4+ cornies, sub-$400)

...or... has anyone had any success constructing something similar with one of the sliding glass top chest freezers?

...or any other ideas to utilize this big brass tower.

Thanks!

Brewpastor build a pretty nice set-up with a freezer that has a split top. Perhaps that will give you some ideas

I don't recall ever seeing small chest freezers with split lids. The alternative might be to bond some wood to the cover and mount the towers towards the back, that's what I'm planning.

I'm thinking about constructing a replacement top for the freezer, with a split from front to back. One side would be fixed with the tower mounted on it, and a drip tray built in. The other side would be hinged, and would have to offer enough room to get kegs in and out of the fixed side.

Splitting it left to right could work to, so long as the tower and taps are far enough back, and the top can still open enough.

Any other ideas?

bobbyc said:

I'm thinking about constructing a replacement top for the freezer, with a split from front to back.

Click to expand...

I saw a website where a guy did something similar. He built the replacement lid out of wood, cherry actually, used the metal to line the inside to control moisture. He may have just took the outside sheetmetal off and built around it, I don't really remember. He used the hinges on the freezer and 2 of those gas struts (like on hatchbacks) to hold up the lid when open. He built a surround for the front and sides (also cherry) that was just held in place with the same type of latches they used on the old style metal picnic coolers.

I remember it because I thought, "holy crap, that's a bunch of money on cherry." But he later explained that he had a cherry tree in his back yard that fell from a storm. He cut it to just over 8' lengths and had a mill cut it into planks. He was a cabinet maker by trade, so he had all the other tools to work the wood.

Here's what I did:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=21129

How about 2 small freezers side-by-side?

One for cold conditioning and one for serving?