Fishing reel tap handle too heavy?

[Dougan]

I'm going to be building my freezer/kegerator in the near future and I had an idea for a tap handle. I have a really old trolling rod with one of those old, big saltwater reels on it (see http://thumbs1.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/mgrpH-6uyjt2IQ8DC9yzAHA.jpg)

I was toying with the idea of using a hacksaw to cut the grip part of the rod off and use the grip + reel as a tap handle. But I'm pretty sure this is going to be too heavy.

Does anybody have any insight as to how much weight I can put on a tap handle before the faucet is not going to stay closed? I'm getting stainless perlick faucets.

Thanks!

 

[Setesh]

I've thought some more about this and I guess it all depends on the center of gravity. If you can get that mounted in such a way that the center of gravity is behind the fulcrum then I think it would work. A lot is going to depend how your taps are mounted. If they are mounted on the front of a keezer for instance I don't know that you will have the room to work with to make it happen. I think the best thing to do would be get your taps in and play with it and see what you can brain up. If the end result doesn't want to stay upright then you would have to devise some kind of keeper to hold it in place and that just seems like a disaster waiting to happen. One drunken instance of leaving the keeper off and it might spell disaster....

 

[Dougan]

Yeah, I thought about tilting it back but that probably would be difficult to assemble and would get in the way since i'm using the freezer/collar approach. I wonder, though, if just using the right tension of some kind of bungee cord might work. I think I'm going to continue assuming that this isn't going to work without some sort of counter-balance.

 

[Setesh]

That's a thought. Surely you would have an attachment point somewhere on that reel. Even that depends on how far up the handle that reel sits. I think you have the right idea though. Counter balancing or tension should do the trick. The fishing theme leaves you wide open on counterweight design too.